Patek Philippe

to create offshoots and alternatives to Nautilus.

(Reminds me a bit of a decades old ad for another very  high level luxury product. When Rolls Royce and Bentley were under the same ownership the ad read something like this “If you feel diffident about buying a Rolls, buy a Bentley”)

The Aquanaut 5060A was introduced at under $6,000, thousands of dollars less than 3800/1A. Clearly Aquanaut was an attempt to create an inviting new entry level, sporty watch for a younger clientele. Neptune 5080/1A was a very different animal and priced almost the same as Nautilus. Neptune, while not overly successful as a product line resulted in a very important watch movement cased in 5085/1A (see the 1999 price list below). This watch led to the 5055 and 5054 dress watches and much more importantly the 3712 and 5712, both of which have become iconic. Interesting to me that the platinum Cubitus at first glance looks very reminiscent of 5712. I wonder if any future watches from other lines will incorporate this movement. There has been a lot of cross  pollination of movements across Aquanaut, Nautilus and round strap watches. Time will tell.

I attach price lists from 1997 and 1999 which illustrate some of my points and contain other pretty fascinating information. Eg, One if the most important watches in Patek history was Philippe Stern’s introduction of the mid level complication, an AC 5035 which  is listed in 1997 at $17,500, a fraction of 3940. 5035 was the first in a long line of mid level complications that opened Patek to a whole new and very large and receptive clientele that wanted something between a time only watch and a full,perpetual.

Cubitus makes sense to me and may draw in a whole new segment of potential Patek fans. We shall see….

Best, Patekova

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