Patek Philippe

For over 175 years Patek Philippe have enjoyed a status that certainly very few can share at the top table of haute horology. What make Patek Philippe so great? I get asked this all the time. The answer is relatively simple- consistency. Patek’s reputation has been made over decades,  including a period when most of the Swiss watch making industry was left in ruins. Remember, in the 1970’s whilst everyone else was trying to survive, and the death of the mechanical watch was upon the industry, Patek were probably the only manufacture that was making perpetual calendars, perpetual calendar chronograph, on application minute repeaters. Whilst other great makes would make such grand complication in extremely limited series, it was Patek Philippe that serially produce them, right from the dawn of the wristwatch with esteem references such as the 1526 and 1518 followed the extraordinarily beautiful references 2499 and 2497, 3448/50.

Combine this technical excellence with movements finished to a level that just was not matched by other manufactures and you see this reputation has been hard earned.

Patek of course were also the first to produce the split seconds chronograph, a complication they have become synonymous with. And they were the first to produce super complications as demonstrated in my exceptional watch series.

What also made Patek unique was the fact they would ensure the servicing of their timepieces not just for your lifetime, but for continuing generations. There is no watch that has ever left the manufacture they will not service or repair or produce an archive record. Remember before it was en vogue to make archive certificates, it was Patek Philippe who were the only manufacture to authenticate and verify their creations.

Hence the advertising of merely looking after one of their timepieces for the next generation was born. The ethos behind this founded from their ability to keep alive their watches from generation to generation. It certainly was not about sealing watches in plastic and locking them in safes.

They are unfortunate victims of their own success in many ways. If collectors now put away their beloved possessions rather than do the right thing- wear them, it can hardly be the fault of the manufacture.