Patek evening in Chester U.K

[bjackson]

Hi Ladies and Gents I my son and I had the pleasure of attending a Patek Philippe evening at the Boodles showroom in Chester U.K. the amount of complicated watches was in the words of the Patek representative unprecedented there were 24 Grand Complications and 17 Complications present as well as watches from the Nautalus and Aquanaught lines, to be honest we were blown away by the collection they did say that it would be very unlikely that this collection would ever be repeated as watches had been drawn from the Boodles showrooms in Chester, Manchester and London as well as the Patek boutique in London and pieces brought direct from Patek in Switzerland. Unfortunately and please don’t crucify me I only had my Iphone with me so not many pictures.
Any way to the interesting parts the watches.

5205 in both grey and black dials were present now this is one of my favorite Pateks but when this watch isn’t the star of the show you know its going to be good !!!!!!!!!

5712 in both rose gold and 5712/1 stainless steel were present, for my son I think this was the star of the show being 20 I think it fits him very well not that I could afford one for him unfortunately.

I managed to pick up a few tit bits of information both from the Boodles staff and from the Patek representative one of them concerns the next watch I tried on, in the factory there are two gentlemen and there main job is to put the case back on the 5159 officers watch they take up to seven hours just to adjust the click sound the case back makes when shut and I can confirm it sounds just right.

5195 in rose, yellow and white gold were present. This is another stunning work of art from Patek and were still not at the star of the evening.
Now onto the star this particular watch sorry work of Haute Horlogerie is the last one ever to be made takes one master watchmaker two years to make and when submitted to Philippe and Thierry Stern must sound as they want if the piece doesn’t pass mustard it is sent back for a six month rebuild and will be presented again and only when they are happy will the time piece go to its new owner and that is after he or she has applied directly to the Sterns to purchase the piece and they have reviewed his or her application, you need to be able to demonstrate that you appreciate the brand and the time piece before being allowed to purchase ( this information came from the Patek representative).

O.K. now the star the 5103 Minute Repeater, all I can say is O.M.G. !!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes this is the last 5013 ever to be made and the last one for sale with Patek yours for a cool £460,000. Patek had a special desk with integrated sounding board connected to noise cancelling headphones so you could hear the chimes clearly and it was fantastic after the gentleman from Patek finished demonstrating and telling us about the time piece I had to ask “may I try it on” he looked round the room and said “go on then, put the gloves on” well what can I say, one large lottery win and she will be mine. This is about as good as it gets I will probably never get this close to a time piece of this quality again but at least I can say I have worn the last ever 5013 to be produced.
The other tit bits of information I picked up were that Patek have one lady who is in her 70’s that paints the enamel dial for the 5131 and will not train anybody to take over so when she retires that will be the end of that particular dial. Patek are changing there business model slightly this year they reached there maximum production level of 50,000 watches and as they don’t want to produce more they will be reducing the amount of stainless steel watches produced and concentrating on the complications and grand complications so those of us with stainless steel Pateks should hang on to them and if you want one now is the time as prices for these are expected to rise rapidly.
Hope you enjoyed the review and sorry for the poor pictures and if I have made any errors please remember I am an enthusiastic amateur. Unfortunately i was unable to place the pictures in the correct positions so if a MOD could do this please do so.

[herbie911]

Thanks for sharing the photos. I had also tried the light grey 5205g. It is really a stunning watch! Are there any 5960 RG black dial? I am yet to see one in my local Patek dealer!

[HL65]

Thanks for sharing! Love the 5159R....Cheers,

[The Joker]

Excellent post, enjoyed reading.

[brkanand]

Glad you enjoyed attending. Thanks for sharing.

[FeelingTheBlues]

Absolutely outstanding timepieces! I love the 5013!

I'm a bit bummed to read about the fact that they will stop (someday) making enamel dials. Enamel painting is a real art (which I'd love to learn someday) and I think it should be preserved but at the same time I'm thinking it's the type of thing Patek would do: all good things must come to an end at some point and the 5131's aren't an exception!

[Puffy]

Awesome thanks for sharing!

Sent from my GT-I9100

[dddrees]

Great post, thanks for sharing.

[steveclocks]

I do like the Nautalus

[TSW]

Looks like you had a fun evening!

[topcat30093]

Thank you for taking the time to take the photos.

I missed out this year when my AD held its annual Patek evening, so its nice to see you enjoying yourself. :)