WORDS
Robin Swithinbank
The furore surrounding Sir Norman Foster’s Gherkin when it popped up on London’s skyline 20 years ago is rather lost now. So too the building itself, which has been swallowed by priapic neighbours, making it barely visible beyond the Square Mile’s narrow borders.
Protuberant though development in the City has been, some of the area’s historic buildings remain visible from far-flung corners of the capital, thanks to protections, some stretching back almost a century. The ‘St Paul’s Heights’ policy, which conserves local views of the great cathedral, has been operated by the City of London Corporation since 1937.
Some views, it seems, provoke strong emotions. How else to explain continued appetite for Patek Philippe’s hand-wound chronographs? A hand-wound chronograph, a device the Genevan firm first adopted in its pocket watches of the 1870s, comes with a significant limitation many consumers struggle to dismiss.
This is the ritual of winding the watch, typically every couple of days. That ritual can become a burden, not least when Patek combines its hand-wound chronograph with a perpetual calendar. And yet still they come. Why? Beyond the allure of the Patek Philippe dial name, many collectors come for the view through the case back, these days a generous slice of sapphire crystal.
Take, as the most approachable of the current generation of Patek hand-wound chronographs, the Ref. 5172G. Dial-side up, it’s awash with blue varnish and an assortment of Arabic numerals. Seen from the rear and through its transparent screen, the watch becomes a kaleidoscope of bridges, gears and deliciously unknowable contraptions that somehow unite to capture time.
The official name for this time-catcher is CH 29-535 PS, the reference Patek gives to what, in 2009, became its debut in-house hand-wound chronograph. It scarcely seems believable now, but till that point, watchmaking’s grande dame had leant on third-party movements for its chronographs.
This current generation movement appeared in a ladies model first, a move that signalled Patek had spotted a trend early. These days, the notion of high-end complications in ladies watches is commonplace. So much so that Patek’s Ref. 7150/250R ladies hand-wound chronograph already has a ‘part of the furniture’ look about it, not long after its launch.
If a hand-wound chronograph is not the first Patek a connoisseur owns, it’s even less likely that it will be one of the aforementioned models that brings chronograph and perpetual calendar functions together. Pieces such as the yellow gold Ref. 5270J grand complication sit in an elite category, defined not just by a full calendar function, but also by six-figure price tags.
Returning to the view – were these handsomely finished pieces automatic, it’s almost certain they’d carry a rotor, which would spin to charge the watch in place of winding the crown. As a rule, these obscure roughly half the movement at any one time. Rather like sticking a building reaching one third of a kilometre into the sky right by a 17th-century Sir Christopher Wren masterpiece. And who in their right mind would countenance that?