Everyone’s birthday is worth celebrating, especially an entrepreneur with profound influence and achievements. Swiss high-end watch brand Patek Philippe launches the 1938P-001 minute repeater and chime time function watch, equipped with a new exclusive movement, to pay tribute to the 85th birthday of the brand’s honorary president Philippe Stern.
The self-chiming watch and the repeater watch strengthen the status of the “King of Watches”
Founded in 1839, Patek Philippe is a high-end brand that is regarded by collectors as the “King of Watches” in the field of watch collection today. In Patek Philippe’s full range of timepieces, there are “self-sounding watches” (large and small) that can automatically emit sounds when the movement is running to tell the time, and “repeater watches” that operate the mechanism to strike the spring to tell the time. The most popular, it is the “holy grail” in collectors’ treasure troves.
In the past, in 1989, the 150th anniversary of the brand, Philip Stern, then director and a third-generation descendant of the Patek Philippe family, also released the R 27 (series) self-winding movement. R 27 was the first model produced by the Patek Philippe workshop. The type of movement designed and manufactured also set off the contemporary revival of the minute repeater. Since then, it has been combined with other complex functions such as tourbillon, perpetual calendar, chronograph and world time zone to create a new, elegant and comprehensive watch. Styles and styles came out one after another.
Since Philip Stern served as President of Patek Philippe for about 16 years from 1993 to 2009, Thierry Stern, who took over as president in 2009 and is the fourth generation descendant of the Stern family, has shown his filial piety and Heritage, so the special edition 1938P-001 minute repeater and chime time function watch was launched. It turns out that 1938 is the year of the birth of honorary president Philip Stern. In addition to using the new R AL 27 PS automatic winding movement, the watch has Only available for special models limited to 30 pieces and will no longer be produced.
In order to allow the minute repeater and chime time devices to share a set of classic gongs, the new R AL 27 PS self-winding movement has added 227 parts, bringing the total number of movement parts to 561, showing extraordinary precision. complex. The structural features of the movement include a set of levers and column wheels used to select the sounding time mode, a force-equalizing cone wheel equipped with a spring-beating component braking device, which can be used to temporarily cut off the power source from the spring-beating device, and has “One-way connection movable design”, “function mode selection can be changed at will”, “minute repeater and constant moving sliding rod”, and “spring device equipped with delayed parts”, a total of 4 patents. These patents will bring advantages including but not limited to the following: allowing users to change function selections at will, and the device will not respond to errors during operation, and the number of spring strikes will not be interrupted, ensuring the correctness of the spring strike sequence, thereby allowing The watch accurately tells the time through the sound of the spring.
It is worth mentioning that the R AL 27 PS self-winding movement is decorated with gold plating on the chamfers of the movement bridge plate, the hammers, and the edges of the automatic disc. At the same time, the automatic disc is also hand-engraved by Philip Stern. The black lacquered signature is used as an embellishment; in the 41 platinum case, the portrait of Philip Stern is vividly reproduced using the process of grand feu enamel. Not only that, the dial is also equipped with Breguet-style hour and minute hands, which is rare among modern Patek Philippe watches and is another feature of the style.
Want to appreciate the graceful details of the movement? As long as you open the officer-style back cover protected by a hinged dust cover, you can admire the transparent sapphire crystal glass back cover. The hinge dust cover is engraved with “A mon père, 85 ans de passion horlogère”, translated. In Chinese, it is “dedicated to my father, 85 years of passion for watchmaking.”
