Patek Philippe reasserts its sovereign mastery of the music of time and enriches its current collection with a wristwatch that combines a grande sonnerie, with a petite sonnerie and a minute repeater. Fully rooted in Geneva’s watchmaking tradition, Patek Philippe began to produce striking watches from the outset. In September 1839, four months after it was founded, the manufacture entered the first timepiece of this kind in its journal, a pocket watch with a repeater. In 1850, entries of pocket watches with a grande sonnerie appeared in the same journals. The catalog of the 1851 ‘Great Exhibition’ in London (the first world exposition) mentions ‘repeaters’ and ‘watches with automatic strike works’ as specialties of Patek Philippe. This was followed in 1860 by Patek Philippe’s first pocket watches with minute repeaters, then in the course of the 19th century by further timepieces with quarter repeaters, five-minute repeaters, and minute repeaters.
In 2014, timed for the company’s 175th anniversary, Patek Philippe presented a further quantum leap in the domain of acoustic complications. It was the launch of the ref. 5175 Grandmaster Chime, a double-faced wristwatch. Crafted in seven exemplars, it unites 20 complications, including a grande and petite sonneries, a minute repeater, an instantaneous perpetual calendar with a four-digit year display, and two patented world debuts: an acoustic alarm that strikes the preselected alarm time and a date repeater that sounds the current date. This first Patek Philippe wristwatch with a grande sonnerie is also the manufacture’s most complicated wristwatch and the ref. 6300 became part of the regular collection in 2016.
Things to Know About the Watch
Patek Philippe has leveraged its skills with respect to artisanship and rare handcrafts, notably in the Grand Feu black enamel dial with a glazed finish, applied Breguet numerals, and leaf-shaped hands in white-gold with luminescent coating. The display of the hours, minutes, and jumping seconds is perfectly balanced with the two power-reserve indicators for the movement and the striking work at 9 and 3 o’clock, respectively. The elegant platinum case measuring 44.8 mm in diameter and 12 mm in thickness is graced with a concave bezel and satin-finished, recessed flanks. Like many other Pateks, the watch comes with interchangeable solid and sapphire crystal case backs. And as all Patek Philippe platinum watches, it features a small diamond set at 12 o’clock on this model, instead of 6 o’clock —because this space is occupied by the strike mode selector.
The Movement
Fulfilling the expectations of many connoisseurs, collectors, and aficionados reference 6301P features a highly coveted and extremely elaborate grande sonnerie, that automatically strikes the full hours and the quarter hours. This grand complication, exceptionally rare in a wristwatch, is complemented with a petite sonnerie —that does not strike the quarter hours but the hours only—, a minute repeater that strikes on-demand, and with patented jumping subsidiary seconds. The new Patek Philippe Grand Sonnerie ef. 6301P has a new 703-part movement —calibre GS 36-750 PS IRM— with three patents and six complications that include a Grande sonnerie, a Petite sonnerie, a Minute repeater, a movement power-reserve indicator, a strike work power-reserve indicator and jumping seconds.
The three patents on calibre GS 36-750 PS IRM include the following:
• Isolation of the grande sonnerie in the silence mode (Patent CH 704 950 B1). In the silence mode, this mechanism totally isolates the grande sonnerie from the power flow and eliminates energy consumption.
• Selection of the strikework mode (Patent CH 706 080 B1). This mechanism enables the selection of the strike work mode —petite sonnerie, grande sonnerie, or silence— with a single lever and a single slide switch. Two slide switches were formerly required for this operation.
• Jumping display with a jumping seconds wheel (Patent CH 707 181 A2). This innovative mechanism for jumping displays does not require springs and levers but instead uses wheels and a release lever that instantaneously unblocks the wheel train every second, and features a coiled return spring as the only power element. The advantage of this system is that it makes energy consumption easier to regulate and control.
This manual wound movement has a power reserve of 72 hours and a strike work power reserve of 24 hours while beating at a frequency of 25,200 vph.
Regarding the striking work, Patek Philippe opted for three classic gongs —low, medium, high. This technical option requires more energy than systems with two gongs. It also complicates the watchmaker’s work when tuning each gong until all three create the legendary “Patek Philippe sound” so coveted by connoisseurs. Attached to the movement, the three gongs must not touch one another nor other parts of the case or movement despite the compact space in which they hover. Three hammers of identical size and mass guarantee a uniform strike for all three pitches. The selection of platinum as the case material also presented a challenge because it is difficult to master acoustically and requires Patek Philippe know-how that at the manufacture is handed down from one generation to the next.
The hours are struck on a low-pitched gong, the quarter hours with a three-strike high-low- medium sequence. The melody for the first quarter hour (15 minutes) sounds once, for the second quarter hour (30 minutes) twice and for the third quarter hour (45 minutes) three times. Each quarter-hour sequence is automatically preceded by the number of elapsed hours, and followed by the number of quarter hours. Thanks to the energy stored in the twin mainspring barrel of the strikework, this adds up to an impressive total of 1056 strikes in 24 hours. The owner can also select the strikework mode petite sonnerie; it strikes the full hours but omits the repetition of the hours when striking the quarter hours. In the silence mode, the automatic time strike is switched off altogether.
The selection of the strike work mode is performed with a slide switch in the caseband at 6 o'clock. The petite sonnerie mode is on the left adjoining the grande sonnerie mode in the middle and silence on the right. This special feature is the subject of a patent that was already developed for the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime and describes a mechanism that enables the selection and activation of the strike mode with a single slide switch.
Formerly, two switches were needed to execute these steps. Another patent, also developed for the Grandmaster Chime, allows the complete isolation of the grande sonnerie in the silence mode, eliminating power consumption. On request, the minute repeater can be triggered by pressing the pusher in the crown at 3 o'clock. In response, it strikes the number of hours with low tones, the quarters with three-strike sequences (as in the grande sonnerie mode), and, on the higher-pitched gong, the number of minutes that have elapsed since the last quarter hour. The minute repeater can be triggered at any time, even if the slide is set to the silence mode.
When they reworked the caliber 300 from the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime, the engineers and designers at the manufacture added a small jumping seconds display, which was never done with a grande sonnerie. Inspired by the four patents of the 175th-anniversary model, the Ref. 5275 Chiming Jump Hour, they endowed the new Ref. 6301P with an innovative jumping seconds mechanism. Its system does not rely on jumper springs as usual but instead with wheels and a release lever that instantaneously unblocks the wheel train every second, making energy consumption easier to regulate and control.
Thus, the new Ref. 6301P chiming watch presents a novel face characterized by the subsidiary seconds hand at 6 o'clock. With the blink of an eye, it jumps along the railway track minute scale from one second to the next, recalling the regulator clocks that were used in old watchmaking ateliers to synchronize the time. The new Ref. 6301P also benefits from the entire experience and the latest insights gained in the design and production of the commemorative watches crafted on the occasion of Patek Philippe’s 175th anniversary.
The watch is delivered on a shiny black, hand-stitched alligator leather strap with square scales and secured with a fold-over clasp.
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