Timeline  /  The first perpetual chronograph
1941

The first perpetual chronograph

Patek Philippe’s reference 1518 of 1941 was the first chronograph with a perpetual calendar made in series.

Patek Philippe reference 1518 perpetual calendar chronograph
A Patek Philippe reference 1518 of the mid-1940s — the reference itself.Photograph: Clyde94 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The need
Both complications had reached the wrist separately; no one sold a watch combining them.
Made by
Patek Philippe, on a Valjoux chronograph base with a perpetual calendar mechanism by Victorin Piguet.
What was new
A chronograph and a perpetual calendar together in a 35 mm catalogue watch.
Worth knowing
281 were made between 1941 and 1954, mostly in yellow gold and only four in steel. One of the steel examples sold at Phillips in Geneva in 2016 for 11 million Swiss francs. Every Patek Philippe perpetual calendar chronograph since follows its layout.

SourcesPhillips · Sotheby’s

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