Sunday, April 14, 2019

What was Cool at BaselWorld - Patek Philippe

One of the rare, halfway decent pictures you will find posted by yours truly ; )

This is the 5168G - Aquanaut.  If there was a theme of sorts this BaselWorld, it was the use of green.  And some were better than others, but suffice it to say, the Aquanaut was my personal favorite. 
So it is important to make a few things abundantly clear - I am not a denizen of what the marketers at Patek would consider their demographic.  I have never owned one, and I do not have a towheaded son who will "never actually own my Patek Philippe" either.  I tend to try and maintain my sense of reality and remember what I learned while working behind the counter at Tourneau -
just because I sell expensive watches to the great and good, does not make me one of them.

Having said that, I can certainly appreciate the risk that went into offering a version like this one.  Patek, like Rolex attracts a certain cult of "sameness",  with the excitement being that rare little quirk.  I go to a fair number of events with collectors and enthusiasts, and I have noticed that the fellas (let's be honest, they all tend to be a bit of a sausage fest) don't generally speak in terms of Submariner or Nautilus, they tend to go right for reference numbers.  And I guess that's fair enough.  I have been reading Magnus Walker's book -
URBAN OUTLAW:
Dirt Don't Slow You Down
editor's note - I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!  It is an excellent read and pretty damn inspirational.  I also encourage you to check out Mr. Walker's TED Talk which I shared with my class of English for Banking students.  You can view it here:


Regular Tempus Fugit readers will have no difficulty understanding that I am not likely to be what is known as a "Porsche Person"(not that there's anything wrong with being one), I am pretty risk adverse.  But in reading about Mr. Walker's transformation into perhaps the best-known car ambassador of all times, I was struck by the shared obsession for minutiae among car collectors and watch collectors - it's often all about the reference numbers.  And yes, I realize that we've drifted off topic ; )  But before we return to our regularly scheduled programming - the relationship between Porsche and Mr. Walker reminds me of the relationship between Omega and Robert-Jan BroerWonderfully organic.

So back to the watch, here are the pertinents, straight from Patek Philippe -

Watch

Self-winding mechanical movement. Caliber 324 S C. Date in an aperture. Sweep seconds hand.

Dial
Khaki green embossed, gold applied numerals with luminescent coating.

Case
White gold. Screw-down crown. Sapphire-crystal case back. Water resistant to 120 m. Diameter (10 - 4 o’clock): 42.2 mm. Height: 8.25 mm.


Strap

Composite material, khaki green. Aquanaut fold-over clasp.

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