Patek Philippe SA is another Swiss luxurious watch and clock manufacturer. It’s a family-owned business started in 1839. This is one of the oldest clock manufacturing companies in the world. People like Queen Victoria, Albert Einstein, John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Pablo Picasso, and Leo Tolstoy used to wear Patek Philippe SA. They hold the record of the current most expensive Pocket watch ever sold at an auction (24 million US dollars). The brand had a lot of ups and downs. Due to disagreement between the owners the brand was liquidated on April 18, 1845. Later the brand was reintroduced as Patek, Philippe & Cie by the French watchmaker Adrien Philippe and Patek. In 1877, Antoni Patek passed away at the age of 65 but his only son, Leon Mecyslas Vincent, did not join the business. As a result, Joseph Antoine Bénassy-Philippe, one of Adrien Philippe’s sons-in-law, succeeded Antoni Patek’s position. Still, it’s a family-run business. Patek Philippe manufactures its own watch components. It has a long lineup of its timepieces. Few notable achievements are:
- In 1868, it created the first Swiss wristwatch.
- In 1881, patented its precision regulator
- In 1949, patented the Gyromax balance
- In 1956, it created the world’s first all-electronic clock which, in 1958, received the “Award for Miniaturization” in New York.
- In 1986, patented the secular perpetual calendar with retrograde date indication.
However, the brand is not that environmentally friendly. As per the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) the brand was given the lowest environmental rating as “Latecomers/Non-transparent”, suggesting that the manufacturer has taken very few actions addressing the impact of its manufacturing activities on the environment and climate change. Don’t worry this is not the only brand receiving this title. 7 other brands including the famous Audemars Piguet, Breguet and Rolex are also in this list of doing the worst to the environment. The brand has got a few expensive timepieces. The Patek Philippe Star Calibre 2000 was sold at Christie’s in Hong Kong for a final price of 3.28 million US dollars becoming the most expensive timepiece ever auctioned in Asia. On November 11, 2014, the Henry Graves Super complication was sold at Sotheby’s Geneva Auction for a record-breaking US$23.98 million becoming the most expensive watch ever sold at auction and held the title until November 9, 2019. Patek Philippe perpetual calendar chronograph was introduced in 1941, bei-+ng the first model. It might take a few days to discuss all the famous series made by this brand. The brand is itself of its own kind and nobody can cross over with this huge achievement. John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Duke Ellington, Clark Gable, Pablo Picasso, Elizabeth Taylor, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Richard Wagner, Andy Warhol and there are many more famous people who walked on this earth with this iconic brand.
