FabR[Senior Patek Moderator]
26166
Let me respond to the Captain's call (your Patek collection really never ceases to amaze me! ;-)) with a couple of limited editions that I was lucky to acquire recently...and which I still MADLY love like on day one! :-))
Sep 03, 2022,00:13 AM
Perhaps interestingly, both watches are part of the same, new Calatrava reference 5177G featuring a hobnail bezel --- a choice that I find great looking and also historically significant for Patek.
It's probably well known that my favorite watch EVER --- which I joyfully showed at least one million times in the two years that I co-moderated the Patek forum
--- is Ref. 5177G-010 "Boccadasse," combining the marvelous Rare Handcraft techniques of enamel and miniature painting.
Note that 2018 was the year Ref. 5177 was introduced in the Rare Handcraft catalog, so I couldn't have been happier that my favorite neighborhood of my hometown in Italy got selected among the four dials inaugurating the series!
I'll forever be grateful to Mike (Cazalea) for photoshopping two pictures of "Boccadasse in Boccadasse" into this legendary one!
Curiously, after 4.5 years, I still know of only ONE other Patek "Boccadasse" in existence (in fact, it's in the collection of a distinguished member of this forum). My friends at Patek never told me the exact production number, but I'm pretty sure that at least a couple other pieces have been created.... If any 5177G-010 owner is reading us, please feel free to get in touch --- I would love to see ALL other watches of this incredible series, if they in fact exist!
A similar story is amazingly true for the "School of Fish" -028, whose only other publicly known specimen so far belongs to......the same WPS member who received the other "Boccadasse"!
Finally, let me wrap up my "limited edition" Patek contribution with a collage of the last five Pateks that I purchased, which I obviously EQUALLY love
Together, they feature all four "main" Rare Handcraft techniques, and with the technical exception of the 5131/1P, all of them are of course limited editions:
In obvious order: Ref. 5177G-028 (enamel); 5177G-010 (enamel and miniature painting); 5088/100P (hand-engraving and black enamel); 5089G-020 (wood marquetry); 5131/1P (enamel).
FabR (senior Patek mod)