By Dhananjay Pathak
Being a watch collector and enthusiast one would agree that it is hard for us to be content with just one watch in our collection and hence we end up having our watch goals which we intend to fulfil over the course of time. Although we try achieving most of it by saving hard and waiting patiently, there are certain watches which are highly desirable and sit high on our wish, but are not able to make the cut no matter how hard we dig into that savings account.
Such watches are generally referred to as grails and today we are here to talk about a brand which is well known for making grail timepieces and is considered by many to be a part of the Holy Trinity of watches. In case you haven’t guessed it by now, we are talking about Patek Philippe and the watch we are going to look at is the Patek Philippe Reference 5170P-001 Platinum.
Patek Philipe are an independent family owned company based out of Geneva and have been making some of the most luxurious and exquisitely crafted watches since 1839. The brand has a deep rooted history in traditional watch making and hence make some of the finest classic looking watches out there. The Reference 5170P-001 holds true to the Patek Philippe DNA and has a nicely laid out dial with a blue sunburst finish that gradates to black.
The Baguette style diamond markers provide a nice contrast against the dial and give the watch a modern flair as compared to the black and white dialed versions which have the Arabic numerals. Although I am not a big fan of watches with diamonds especially men’s watches, they do seem to complement the look of the watch well in this case. The hour and minute hands are of dauphine style and have been filled with lume to ensure legibility in low light situations. Being a chronograph this watch has a bicompax layout with a running seconds sub dial at 9 and a 30 minute counter at 3. Both the registers are nicely recessed giving sense of depth to the dial and there is even a tachymeter scale on the outer periphery of the dial which gives the watch a distinctive look.
As the name suggests the case on this watch is made out Platinum as opposed to Gold cases of the other models falling under the 5170 reference. This is feel is another interesting move as even though Platinum is also a precious metal it lends the watch a more contemporary look as compared to Gold. The case has a diameter of 39mm and a thickness of 10.9mm and both these dimensions suggest that the watch would sit comfortably on almost any wrist. There are sapphire crystals on both the front and back of the watch and water resistance is rated at a paltry 30 meters. Yes, I do understand that this is an elegant luxury watch which would find its place only under those expensive suits, but I still feel that a 50 meters water resistance would make much more sense on a watch this expensive.
The watch is powered by Patek Philippe’s in house Caliber CH29-535 PS. This is a manually wound chronograph movement made out of 269 parts, offering a power reserve of 65 hours and this watch comes with the Patek seal the timing accuracy is rated at -3/+2 seconds a day. As is the case with other Patek Philippe movements the Caliber CH29-535 PS has been decorated exquisitely and is a sight to behold when viewed from the sapphire crystal exhibition case back. From polished chamfers to the Côtes de Genève on the bridges and circular graining on the wheels this is about as intricate as it gets.
The Patek Philippe Refrence 5170P-001 is a great looking dressy chronograph and the Platinum case would make it all the more desirable by a wider set of audience. The watch would come mated to shiny black alligator strap and would retail at a price of 85000 CHF.
For more info, please visit patek.com
