Timeline / The first perpetual calendar wristwatch
The first perpetual calendar wristwatch
Patek Philippe put a perpetual calendar movement into a wristwatch case in 1925, the first time the complication was worn on the wrist.
- The need
- None, at first. The movement was made in 1898 for a lady’s pendant watch that never sold, and the wristwatch was a way to use it.
- Made for
- Cased in 1925 and sold in 1927 to the American collector Thomas Emery.
- What was new
- A calendar that knows the length of each month and the four-year leap cycle, worn on the wrist. It is also the earliest known wristwatch with a moon phase.
- Worth knowing
- Movement no. 97975, in a yellow gold case of about 34 mm. A one-off, not a model: Patek Philippe did not offer a perpetual calendar wristwatch in its catalogue until 1941.
- Where it is now
- The Patek Philippe Museum, Geneva.
Historian’s noteA conversion of a movement built twenty-seven years earlier for a different kind of watch. Both 1925, the casing, and 1927, the sale, are quoted as its date.
SourcesPatek Philippe
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