Watches - another OCD problem
-
I am still on a bit of a high from a surprise excursion last week. I was lucky enough to be invited over to Geneva by Patek Philippe to get a Museum and factory tour.
Travelled to Geneva from the UK on Thursday morning. Checked into the hotel in the town centre and was then taken to the Museum. Well worth a visit if you are ever in Geneva. Philippe Stern has put together an amazing collection of timepieces. Second floor is historic timepieces from sixteenth to mid nineteenth century from a multitude of manufacturers. First floor is the Patek Philippe collection from 1839 to 2000 including watches owned by founder Monsiuer Antoine Norbert de Patek himself, Queen Victoria, Duke Ellington and JFK.
The museum were very keen to enlighten everyone regarding Jean Adrien Philippe's invention the keyless crown winding and setting mechanism. As we all know this is now common on pretty much all mechanical watches. Patek Philippe take pride in this fact that all modern mechanical watches use this mechanism. So the next time you set your watch or wind it via the pull out crown you will have your own mini "Patek" experience.
Above is one of four Calibre 89 open faced astronomical clocks. These took 9 years to make between 1980 and 1989. The timepiece has 33 complications, 1728 components, weighs 1.1 kg and was until 2015 the most complicated mechanical timepiece ever made (The Vacheron 57260 took this honour in 2015 with 57 complications).
Evening meal at a choice Geneva restaurant. Everything on the itinerary was typical Patek quality, no corners cut anywhere.
A few pictures outside the main Patek Philippe office. You may recognise the hairspring piece of architecture.
This is inside the foyer of the 2 year old PP6 manufacturing building. We were not allowed to take photos inside the manufacturing areas of the building. The building is 189 m long and consists of 10 floors, 4 underground and 6 above ground.
We were taken around the entire manufacturing process. Some mind blowing stuff. I witnessed the tiniest of hairsprings (I could hardly see it) being hand polished and bevelled on four separate faces!!!
We were taken to the advanced research department which is on the same corridor as the minute repeater section. The watchmakers told us that the minute repeater was by far the most difficult complication to get right. All minute repeaters made in the workshop by one of four qualified watchmakers, goes onto the CEO Thierry Stern's desk for individual sign off. Mr Stern listens to them all before release for sale.
I got to handle the prototype for the Fortissimo 5750P minute repeater that is super loud compared to a standard minute repeater. Only 15 of these were made.
Again no corners cut anywhere, the layout is well thought through, there is a really nice employees canteen on the top floor and an executive restaurant area complete with in house michelin starred chef, where we had lunch with one of the directors, Monsieur Jerome Pernici ( I jokingly asked him if he could sell me a Nautilus, he smiled and quite charmingly told me he could not sell anything direct ).
To finish the day off we had the chance to handle the entire 21/22 collection including the £1.2 million grand master chime.
These pictures were taken from the terrace on top of the PP6 building.
I have definitely had worse Thursday's and Friday's. Super humbled to have been invited on a trip like this. The factory tour was amazing and not open to the public unfortunately, so I am one very lucky lad. A once in a lifetime experience for sure.
-
@goosehd Basically you have to own a Patek and have a good relationship with the dealer you purchased it from.
Patek offer a fixed number of these visits to their dealer network. Rhone products ( A subsidiary of Patek Phillipe) are the UK distributor. They get 2 x visits like this per year to allocate to their various dealerships.
This time round they offered the trip to Wempe London where I am a customer. Wempe in turn then look at their customer base and select the lucky few to attend. I was one of 16 customers invited along.
It all got organised pretty quickly, got the call on a Sunday, made my excuses with work and got myself free for Thursday and Friday. Private jets are pretty cool, must admit.
-
Sounds absolutely awful
@Giles It was indeed an absolute hardship….....
Very hard to spin this hardship with Mr's Trash. To be fair she was also invited along as well but child care etc would not allow this to happen.
Some of the other customers on the trip were quite hard work. Amazing how abundant wealth can effect people detrimentally, some interesting / difficult (up their own arse) type folks on this trip.
-
wow looks brilliant!
-
So how many Grand Master Chimes did you cop, @ddtrash ?
Truly an amazing experience and thank you for sharing it with us. -
-
@mclaincausey It was nice to handle the Grand Master chime and I could appreciate it for its craftsmanship but aesthetically it does not work for me at all. Some of the pieces like the Grand Master Chime are not really practical useable pieces in my opinion. I would love to meet the person who could rock a Grand master chime as an every day beater
One of the other guests on the trip had just ordered the new grey grey dial colour in the rose gold case 5204, perpetual calendar with split second chronograph. He got to handle this watch in hand for the first time since he had ordered it. I was watching his face closely at the time, he was quite taken with it. Thank goodness or it would have been an expensive mistake.
I was asked for my wish list so have put forward a few pieces I would like in my collection. Proper wish list stuff but may as well ask for what you previously thought was unobtainable.
-
I nominate @Matt to do a similar write up in the less intimidating watch thread, where he goes to the mall and visits the G-shock kiosk and then gets lunch at the food court and rides the kids airplane quarter ride.
amazing looking trip @ddtrash you are in rare air.
Definitely more my speed.
I’ll carve out some time for the pilgrimage. -
@ddtrash it sounds like a good trip.
As for the "interesting" folks, I'm imagining a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory scenario wher they're slowly whittled down by health and safety issues in the Patek factory, and Thierry Stern offers the survivors a place on the waiting list for a Nautilus.
-
@Graeme I have indeed requested a Nautilus. At the end of the final day the UK dealership asked for a wish list.
However unlike the Dahl book, I was not a sole survivor at the end of the visit so others customers have also asked for a Nautilus too. My odds of getting offered one after this trip are probably as good as you will ever get though.The visit did remind me of Charlie and the chocolate factory with a bit of Bond Villain and Villain's lair thrown in for good measure.
-
Monday blues…
-
Nice one [mention]SimonA [/mention]
Amazing trip [mention]ddtrash [/mention] Thank you for the ride along!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
-
@SimonA that FXD is lovely. Always liked the Pelagos blue but it was a bit too bright for my taste. The FXD has nailed it.
@Anesthetist thanks for the kind words. I tried to keep it short, quite a tough task considering what was crammed into the two days. My head is still spinning.
