Patek Philippe, founded in 1851, is a well-known Swiss watch manufacturer. The company produces some of the most complicated technical timepieces in the world. Patek Philippe invented the perpetual calendar, minute repeater, chronograph, and split-seconds hand. Patek Philippe has been awarded 764 prizes at the Geneva Observatory from 1900 through 1967, which consisted of 187 first place prizes in this time period.
American automobile manufacturer tycoon, James Ward Packard, purchased model No. 174623 in 1917. This model was an 18 carat gold timepiece that included a perpetual calendar and displayed the phases of the moon. In 1918, Packard purchased model No. 174720. This model was awarded the first class precision bulletin from the Geneva Observatory, and it included a one-minute Tourbillon regulator with a 30 hour power reserve.
Patek Philippe constructed one of the finest timepieces the world has seen in 1925. The first automatic changing perpetual calendar wristwatch, No. 97975, won top prize chronometer trials at the Geneva Observatory.
The watch company initiated the construction of the first wristwatch with split-seconds chronograph and perpetual calendar in the 1930s. Model No. 198393 was released for sale in 1938, and it marked an innovative invention in the watch manufacture’s history.
In 1944, Ref. 1591 was launched, which included a SCQ caliber. There were only 12 watches produces in pink or yellow gold. This timepiece also included a perpetual calendar and center-seconds.
On March 31, 1953, Patek Philippe was granted a patent for a system of automatic winding. The company created the 12’’’ -600 AT, which featured a central router in 18 carat gold. The further production of the 12’’’ -400 HU is part of Ref. 2523, which includes 2 crowns. These revolutionary watches were available in pink, white, or yellow gold. There are certain pieces in this series that included cloisonné enamel dials.
1968 was an inventive year for Patek Philippe. The watch company joined with other well-known Swiss watch manufacturers to become the Electronic Watch Centre, which jointly studied the development of a quartz wristwatch caliber. It took the team of watch manufactures only one year to produce the caliber Beta 21, which was available for purchase that same year.
To celebrate the company’s 150th anniversary, the Calibre 89 was released in 1989. This timepiece was the most complicated watch on the planet, which featured 1,728 pieces and 33 complications. The watch also included the date of Easter, a sunrise and sunset display, and a star chart of the northern hemisphere for the latitude of Geneva with the precise position of 2,800 stars.
The Pagoda wristwatch was released in 1997 to celebrate the new watch center at Plan-les-Ouates. Only a limited amount of models produced, which included 1100 yellow gold, 500 pink gold, and 150 platinum versions of the men’s model. The company produced a women’s model, which included 500 models in yellow gold, 150 models in pink gold, and 100 models in white gold.
In 2000, the company released the Star Calibre 2000. This unique timepiece features an equation of time, a sky chart, and the time of meridian passage by the moon and Sirius. The watch includes 1118 parts, which are available in yellow, pink, and white gold cases.