Patek Philippe

Chromatic Fugue
1850

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thoughts on "the two watch collection"

I recently came across an online article called "the Two-Watch Collection," which imagines what the author (Ben Clymer) would keep if he winnowed his personal collection down to just two watches.  He chose the Lange 1815 chrono and the Patek 3940.  I've never met him, but he and I must have something in common, because this year I replicated his notional two-watch collection without quite meaning to do so.  In the spring, I came close to buying the Datograph, which was always a grail for me, but reluctantly decided that it overwhelmed my wrist.  A few months later I tried on the Dato's smaller, date-less sibling -- a first-generation 1815 Chrono -- and that one was irresistibly perfect.  Then last month, with a Patek gap in my collection for the first time in ten years, I got interested in current-production perpetual calendars -- particularly the blue-dial 5140P.  Many of you on this forum gently (or not-so-gently) guided me to that reference's predecessor, the 3940. I found a platinum model that checked every box.  

As Clymer noticed, each of these models is outstanding in its own right, but the whole is somehow greater than the sum of the parts.  Outside, you have perfect representatives of two design traditions: Swiss and teutonic.  Inside, you have two movements that help define modern watchmaking.  The ultra-thin 240 Q movement in the 3940 was Patek's defiant response to the quartz crisis in 1985.  And the in-house chrono movement in the 1815 Chrono marked Lange's triumphant reentry into the market a decade later (although it appeared first only in the Dato).  The Lange has no date function and specializes in measuring elapsed time to the fraction of a second.  The Patek has no seconds hand but can tell you the day, date, month, phase of the moon, and where you are in the four-year Gregorian cycle. 

I don't have a favorite between these two; each is stupendous in its own way.  The Patek fits my thin wrist somewhat better than the Lange, but that's the fault of my wrist, not the Lange, which is reasonably sized for a chrono:

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