A Patek Philippe 5119J In Yellow Gold: The Classicist’s Classic

The Patek Philippe Calatrava was first introduced in 1932 as the 31mm ref. 96, and it has been around in one form or another ever since. There have been many variations but they have largely been simple, time-only, or time-and-date watches, either hand-wound or automatic and while Patek Philippe is justly famous for its complicated watches, the Calatrava as Patek’s simplest watch, expresses the identity of the company with a particular clarity.

The 5119 was introduced in 2006, and it’s a slightly larger (36mm) version of its immediate predecessor, the 3119. The 3119 was launched in 1985, and the story of its genesis is an interesting one. As John Reardon notes in his detailed article at Collectability, the 3919 was conceived as a solution to the problem of Patek’s decline in sales following the Quartz Crisis – by the early 1980s, production had fallen to “barely 5,000 watches a year” and Philippe Stern, in search of a way to revitalize and broaden interest in the company, sought the advice of a Geneva-based advertising and marketing expert, René Bittel, who was also a designer and art director. Bittel’s advice was for the company to choose a distinctive design that would be instantly recognizable and function as a sign of status and success. Bittel suggested creating a Calatrava model with the distinctive hobnail bezel Patek had used in previous Calatrava models:

“The ingredients for the ref. 3919 contained the following: first the Calatrava, the quintessential Patek design. Second was the hobnail dial. This decoration was then being used on the manual ref. 3520D (introduced in 1972 with a 32 mm dial) and the ref. 3802 (introduced in 1983 with an automatic movement with date and center seconds, which in 1986 became ref. 3802-200). Bittel however, made sure that the hobnail decoration really stood out by contrasting it with a crisp white dial, that channeled the beauty of an enamel dial but without the worry of breaking, and sharp, black Roman numerals. This combination, together with clever ad copy was the recipe for success. The ref. 3919 was launched in 1985 with a 33.5 mm case and a mere thickness of 6.5 mm. Also new to the model was the caliber 215 PS movement which added a sub-second at 6 o’clock. The hands although black, were made of white gold and then black nickel-plated.”

For the movement, Patek used the caliber 215 PS (petite seconde, or small seconds). The Calatravas have housed some of Patek Philippe’s most famous movements, including the hand-wound 12-120 used in the first Calatrava, and the 12-600 AT automatic with small seconds, which was Patek’s first automatic caliber, and one of the finest, if not the finest, automatic movements ever made. Prior to the introduction of the 215 PS, Patek Philippe had made use of the calibers 175 and 177, both of which were based on the ultra-thin F. Piguet 21, which in its earliest form had been introduced in 1925 and which was one of the first true ultra-thin wristwatch movements. Those movements were used in a hobnail bezel Calatrava which was the immediate predecessor to the 3191 – the Calatrava ref. 3520, which was launched in 1965 and which remained in production for 25 years, along with the hobnail bezel 3820 automatic. The hobnail bezel, however, goes back almost to the beginning of the Calatrava family – the first Calatrava watch with a hobnail bezel was the 96D, introduced in 1934.

The caliber 215 PS was a bit of a throwback from a design standpoint, to the earliest hand-wound Calatrava calibers, including the 12-120, in its use of an S-shaped central bridge for the center and third wheels. Unlike those calibers, the 10 ligne 215 PS uses a single bridge for the fourth and escape wheels, and, in another nod to modernity, it was the first Calatrava caliber to run at 4Hz/28,800 vph rather than the 3Hz/18,000 vph beat rate found in previous automatic and manual Patek Calatrava calibers.

The caliber 215 PS uses Patek’s Gyromatic balance, which was patented twice – in 1949 and 1951 – and which was invented for Patek Philippe by André Zibach. Zibach is perhaps the most famous of the 20th century adjusters responsible for fine-tuning Patek Philippe watches for the observatory competitions, and he was also Patek’s technical director, as well as the head of its chronometer department.

Zibach’s invention is a subtle and clever one for the problem of regulating the rate of a watch. Historically, precision watch balances were as large as possible, consistent with other considerations like overall movement design, presence or absence of complications, intended use of the timepiece, sought-for power reserve, and so on. The reason for this is that a large balance means a higher moment of inertia, which is just linear inertia in a rotating object. A higher moment of inertia means better resistance to variations in rate due to external disturbances. Typically, pocket watches were brought to time with meantime screws set into the balance rim (usually along with screws for temperature compensation) which take up extra room in the movement.

This is not a real problem in pocket watches but in wristwatches, where space is at a premium, it would be better to arrange things so that the balance can still be as large as possible and so, screws protruding from the rim of the balance start to become a problem. One way to go, is to rearrange the entire going train of the watch, which is what Zenith did when it developed the caliber 175 (which was put back into production this year). Another solution, which is what Zibach came up with, is to use eccentric weights on the inner rim of the balance, which can be rotated in order to place their center of mass closer to or further from the center of rotation. This lets you have a larger balance than if you were using conventional meantime screws, and it also reduces aerodynamic drag, which, believe it or not, can affect the rate of the watch if atmospheric pressure changes (the effect is most noticeable with changes in altitude).

It is also, and this is not nothing, a very elegant looking solution, which fits the overall character of the movement and the watch very well. The 5119 is perhaps a more wearable watch than the 3119 in terms of modern taste; at 33.5mm the 3119 feels like a more vintage watch than the 36mm 5119, which is a size to which contemporary tastes have largely returned, or at least, which contemporary tastes have broadened to embrace.

The 3119 and by extension the 5119 were characterized as “banker’s watches” which is, as you can imagine, a great compliment if you are Swiss. Both were commercially successful and both represent Patek Philippe watchmaking at its most timeless and most traditional, as part of a tradition of both watchmaking and watch design stretching all the way back to the 1930s. The 3119 was one of the first watches I ever wrote about professionally and I have a deep affection for both the 3119 and its slightly larger cousin, although if I were to choose one today I’d probably take the 5119 for its larger size and greater wrist presence. Like the first ref. 96, the 3119 and 5119 were exactly what Patek needed to become an even stronger presence in the watch world, thanks to both the design, and an effective ad campaign; Reardon notes:

“This was Patek’s first international ad campaign, and it worked. Within two years Patek’s sales increased 28% and the number of watches sold (including quartz) reached over 12,000 in 1987. By the early 1990s, Patek could not keep up with demand and René Bittel had to produce ads explaining why customers had to wait so long.”

The 5119 offers tremendous value on every level, thanks to its roots in Patek Philippe’s history and in no small part thanks to the elegantly executed caliber 215 PS (when I first reviewed the 3119, decades ago, the only fault I could find with it was the fact that a single bridge was used for the fourth and escape wheels, rather than the two separate bridges found in the caliber 12-120 but I have become less insistent on the point over the years – maybe due to sentimentality). The “banker’s watch” moniker really speaks to the character of the watch – readily apparent quality and luxury combined with a discrete charm that captures not only the nature of Patek Philippe, but the national character of Switzerland.

See it here