Grandmaster chime

Patek unveils grand complication for 175th

Patek Philippe celebrated its 175th anniversary in Geneva last night with a slew of new watches including a grand complication boasting 20 complications and no fewer than five chimes.

Only seven of the 1,366 component Grandmaster Chime Ref. 5175 watches will ever be produced. Six of these will be put up for sale, with the final example resting in the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva.

The watch is the most complicated wristwatch Patek has ever produced and includes grand sonnerie, petit sonnerie, minute repeater, strikework mode display for silence/grand sonnerie/petit sonnerie, alarm, perpetual date repeater, going train power reserve indicator, strikework power reserve indicator, strikework isolator display, second time zone, second time zone day/night indicator, instantaneous perpetual calendar, day/month/date displays, leap year cycle, four digit year display, moon phase, 24-hour and minute sub dial and crown position indicator.

Of course all of these complications wouldn’t fit comfortably on just one dial so the ref. 5175 has two, with the watch head flipping over to reveal the second, pivoting through the watch’s vast lugs.
The manually wound Calibre 300 inside features five chimes allowing for the kind of melodious strike that few other watches can replicate.

The watch, which features an ornately hand-engraved 18ct rose gold case measuring a vast 47.7mm in diameter and 16.1mm high, has been in development for the past seven years and will cost $2.6million.

Three other models were unveiled including a tonneau-shaped Platinum chiming jumping hour (ref. 5275P) limited to 175 pieces, men’s and ladies’ World Time Moon (ref. 5575 and ref. 7175) and six versions of a Multi Scale Chrono (ref. 5975 and ref. 4675) for both men and women.

 

James Buttery

Editor of WatchPro, the WatchPro Hot 100 and The Luxury Report.

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