Patek Philippe & Co. : The Finest Timepiece Makers

In 1844, Antoine Norbert de Patek met Jean Adrian Philippe in an exhibition in Paris, France. Philippe was awarded a bronze medal for his pioneering keyless winding and hand settling system. Philippe was invited to Geneva by Antoine in 1845 and a new company was formed by them Patek & Cie. The company was relocated to 15 Quai des Bergues. The old company went into liquidation. It produced its first pocket watch with keyless stem-winding and hand-settling system.

In 1851, the company was renamed Patek Philippe & Co.

Movements

Patek Philippe & Co. is highly valued by watch collectors because of its expertise in making movements. It has three types of movements-manual winding, self-winding, and quartz movements. Time is adjusted in manual winding by moving the crown. The tensioned mainspring drives the wheels inside. In self-winding, the wrist movements help wind the mainspring with the help of a rotor.

Patek Philippe has been making this winding since 1953 and has developed the most sophisticated ones. It also pioneered quartz movements in 1948 and has the same precision as its hand wound watches.

Innovation

Patek Philippe is known for its innovative zeal and has 80 patents to its credit. It has patents for photoelectric cell (1954), adjustable fixing system, linear digital time (1959), time zone mechanism (1959-62), Caliber 240 (1977), instantaneous perpetual calendar (2008) to name a few.

Watches

It produces a range of men’s watches, ladies watches, and pocket watches. To women’s watches, it adds gold and diamond jewelry to make them appealing. It recently introduced Calatrava 7200/200R featuring 142 diamonds in two staggered rows. Watches are made of white gold, yellow gold, platinum, rose gold, and stainless steel.

They are unique for their features- chronograph, moon phase, annual calendar, world time, tourbillon, and perpetual calendar among others.

Jewelry

Patek Philippe makes jewelry with the same precision and craftsmanship suitable for men and women. They are made of 18 karat yellow, rose or white gold. They are topped with precious stones such as lapis lazuli, onyx, agate, and diamonds.

Ownership

The company is presently run by the Stern family who became part of the company in 1932 when Jean and Charles Henri Stern invested in the company. Charles became the Chairman of the company in 1935.

Achievements

Patek Philippe is credited with the development of first Swiss wristwatch in 1868. The customer was Countess Koscowicz of Hungary. It was set in a bracelet of yellow gold. It won the Astronomical Observatory of Geneva Award in 1880 with its pocket chronometer with lever escapement. It started to use the Geneva Seal of quality since 1886 until 2009 when it was replaced by Patek Philippe seal.

Auction

Patek Philippe commands huge premiums at auctions. Recently, a Patek Philippe reference 1518 sold for $11 mn at an auction- setting a record topping the Patek 5016 bids of $7.3 mn.