The Patek Philippe Ten Day Tourbillon Is An Inside Baseball Home Run

The origin story of the tourbillon isn’t quite as well known as Peter Parker’s radioactive spider bite, but it’s close. The inventor of the tourbillon, Abraham Louis Breguet, developed it as a way of coping with the fact that a watch will run slightly fast or slow depending on its position. A tourbillon is a watch in which the regulating components – balance spring, balance, and escapement – are placed in a rotating cage that turns in the same plane as the movement. The idea is that with a tourbillon, instead of having different rates in the four vertical positions (crown up, crown down, crown left, and crown right) you will instead have a single average rate for all the vertical positions. 

For many decades after Breguet patented the tourbillon, in 1801, it was an extremely rare complication and it was generally only made for pocket watches. In the 1940s, both Patek Philippe and Omega made tourbillon wristwatches for the observatory competitions and these were designed to be first and foremost, platforms for exploring the cutting edge of accuracy and precision in mechanical horology. Neither company’s watches were especially designed to beguile the eye but the movements did reflect different company cultures – Omega’s caliber 30 I was quite minimally finished, while Patek’s observatory tourbillons were finished to high-end watchmaking standards and have all the beauty you would expect from mid-century Patek Philippe movements. In particular, the caliber 34T was stunning: A rectangular movement, with an unusual 50 second tourbillon, and an amagnetic berrylium-bronze cage, designed by the famous André Bornand.

Patek Philippe Caliber 34T

The reason I bring up the caliber 34T (cased in the ref. 3834) is that in terms of its design, it’s always looked to me quite a bit like the caliber T 28-20 REC 10J PS IRM, in the 5101 Ten-Day Tourbillon. The caliber name means that it’s 28mm x 20mm, rectangular, with ten day power reserve (“j” is for “jours,” days) small seconds (PS stands for “petite secondes”) and with power reserve indicator (“indication reserve de marché”).

Patek Philippe Caliber T 28-20 REC 10J PS IRM

Never has so mundane an alphanumeric string been applied to a more beautiful object. The 5101 overall is a very beautiful watch overall, don’t get me wrong – the version we have here is an example of the first iteration of the 5101, in platinum, with Art Deco style stepped flanks on the case. The salmon dial and blackened gold hands and markers are indicators of an earlier model as well. The 5101 was manufactured from 2003 to 2013, and in addition to platinum there were models in white gold, pink gold and yellow gold as well, but I think the original platinum model is the most appealing aesthetically. The blackened gold hands and markers have a tendency to discolor over time (a result of the oxidation process used to blacken the hands) but in a world where badly faded dials are “tropical” this is less a bug than a feature at this point.

As gorgeous as the watch is overall, the movement is absolutely, without question, what closes the deal. T 28-20 is obviously cut from the same cloth as caliber 34T but as a meant-to-be-seen showcase for the highest level of movement design and decoration from Patek, it is the essence of Patek’s historical approach made visible, and a wonderful example of why it is that Patek to this day enjoys a reputation unequaled by any other haute horlogerie brand. Technically it was a very advanced watch for its time – we somewhat take long power reserves for granted these days, but Patek’s use of two large mainspring barrels running in series ensured that the movement would run precisely along the entire power reserve – a solution Patek had used in the 5100 Ten Day in 2000 (which was the subject of one of most hilarious pieces of early Internet watch writing ever, written by a gent who went by Watchbore on Timezone, the entire first half of which is a painfully prolonged shaggy dog of a joke that turns out to be apropos after all.)

The tourbillon is supposed to be an aid to accuracy although in recent decades it has been valued more for its visual pizzaz than its precision, but flying in the face of this lack of integrity, every 5101 was chronometer certified by the COSC (the Contrôle officiel suisse des Chronomètres, which is responsible for testing movements to the international standard for chronometers). The fact that the tourbillon in the 5101 is not visible through an aperture in the dial merely underscores the extent to which it represents not just the finest workmanship but also dedication to the tourbillon’s whole raison d’etre.

You could write out a list of all the aspects of the movement construction and finishing that set it apart not only from watchmaking in general, but even from Patek’s own watchmaking production but such lists are no substitute for prolonged and careful examination in person. Phlippe Dufour once said, of Lange finishing’s superiority, that you should look with your own eyes and see what is true and the same applies here. I would deliberately seek to offend no one, but if your idea of luxury watchmaking is paying three times retail (or whatever) for a hype watch with crypto, then this piece is not for you. If you care about watchmaking, or aspire to understand what separates the good stuff from the cynically made junk, make it your business to check out the 5101, in platinum, pink dial with oxidized black gold hands and markers, as God and Philippe Stern meant it to be.