A few years ago, Patek introduced a new 5270P with a beautiful salmon dial, for 2022 they’ve gone with a colour that is seemingly hard to avoid these days. We had the pleasure last week of sitting down with Patek to get up close a personal with some of their latest releases and this new perpetual calendar chronograph instantly stood out. As platinum is the king of metals and coveted by Patek collectors, it seems like this is a real push by Patek to get even more people on board the 5270. Almost all the new details suggest this might be the case, and let’s see whether they’ve managed to achieve that.
The first and most noticeable change occurs on the dial, where Patek Philippe has introduced what they call a “graduated” green dial. To us though, it has colloquially become known as either a vignette or fume dial. The dial features applied white-gold markers and matching hands alongside the standard 2 aperture, 3 sub dial layout of the perpetual calendar chronograph. Another noticeable detail is the use of font for their Arabic numerals, they’ve appeared to go for a more modern use of font sans-serif – which I think takes away a little from the subtle detail that married the previous versions together.
Same with the previous execution, the 5270P is powered by the calibre 29-535 PS Q, Patek Philippe’s first in-house perpetual calendar chronograph movement. This replaced the previously Lemania based 27-70 Q which was used in the 5970 and was meant to be a step up by Patek, finally integrating all movements in-house.
Interestingly though, the 5970 (the previous generation perpetual calendar chronographs) are still on the rise pricewise because it is seen as the last of the Lemania based movements and collectors seemingly have a romantic inclination towards this idea whereas the 5270 doesn’t share the love and can be bought relatively easily from a Patek Philippe boutique.
Patek’s choice to use of a vignette green dial on what is a ‘production’ piece such as this is also worth discussing. The Perpetual Calendar Chronograph has always been seen as the ultimate statement piece from Patek and as such has always been adorned with a dial that is either silver, black, champagne or for that more special occasion – salmon. This vignette green dial is in keeping with the current trend, but it does signal a little in the way of dilution by Patek Philippe to lure in more sales possibly? Purely a hypothetical question but certainly worth discussing relative to the state of the modern watch industry.
With that question out of the way though, no doubt this is seriously a beautiful piece. The gradient green dial is spot on, and the contrast created between the Platinum case and the dial, hands and markers really make this a watch that stands out. I do think that any perpetual calendar chronograph from Patek Philippe will always be a collectible watch and a sound investment. It may go through dips and turns where the interest may wane, but the history of the manufacture producing these watches is just so deep and strong, with the name Patek Philippe and the term perpetual calendar chronograph so heavily entwined, I doubt it will ever change.
The Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar Chronograph ref. 5270P-014 is priced at £163,030. For more information, visit patek.com.
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