Patek Philippe expands its range of travel watches with the Calatrava 24-Hour Display Travel Time Ref.5224R-001. Price €57,830. Watches & Wonders 2023
Patek Philippe is expanding its range of travel watches and complications for everyday use with the launch of the new Calatrava 24-Hour Display Travel Time 5224R-001, a model combining the timeless elegance of the Calatrava with an original and useful Travel Time dual time zone function, here further distinguished by a 24-hour display.
Among the numerous complications available in the Patek Philippe collections, the exclusive Travel Time system for the display of a second time zone (with two center hour hands, one of which can be adjusted backwards or forwards in one-hour steps) has met with great success, owing to its ease of operation and excellent legibility.
In this model, in addition to the Travel Time function, we find a 24-hour display. The manufacture already used it in the past but for the new Reference 5224R-001, the designers have reinterpreted this type of indication in a new way choosing to place noon at 12 o’clock, rather than at 6 o’clock as is usually the case, thereby ensuring excellent legibility throughout the daytime hours.
To provide these functions, Patek Philippe’s engineers took the 31-260 ultra-thin self-winding base caliber and added a 24-hour mechanism and a Travel Time mechanism.
Visible through a transparent sapphire-crystal back, the new self-winding caliber 31-260 PS FUS 24H movement with mini-rotor in platinum makes it possible to provide a case whose elegant slimness is perfectly suited to a Calatrava model.
Several Patek Philippe patents are applied again in this new caliber, including – for the time zone component –three patents from the caliber 31-260 PS QA LU FUS 24H (Reference 5326G-001):
- Time setting with three crown positions. This time-setting system has a lever with three positions that can deactivate certain wheels as long as they are not performing any correction. This reduces energy consumption and wear of the respective wheels. The result is a gain for the balance amplitude (rate accuracy) and for reliability.
- Linear time-zones spring. This system consists of a star-wheel and a jumper spring. It allows a strong torque increase between the local-time hour wheel and the home-time hour wheel –thus providing the user with more precise information.
- Inertial delta. This mechanism offsets the inertia difference between a heavier and a lighter wheel. When the time zone is being corrected in either direction, it prevents an unintended forward or backward misalignment of the time displays (home time, local time, minutes). This increases the accuracy of the displays.
Operating at a frequency of 4 Hz ( 28,800 vibrations per hour), this movement guarantees an autonomy of 48 hours.
To preserve the sleek lines, Patek Philippe also replaced the traditional correction pushers for local time on the left-hand flank of the case with a patented correction system using the crown pulled out to the intermediate position (backwards and forwards adjustment in one-hour steps).
The rose-gold case is fully polished and has a diameter of 42 mm and a thickness of 9.85 mm. It is inspired by the Calatrava Weekly Calendar Reference 5212A-001 launched in 2019 and is distinguished by its curved two-tier lugs.
The navy-blue dial is characterised by a double railway-track scale for the hours and minutes, and the 24-hour display features alternating Arabic numerals and hour markers, along with cabochon 5-minute markers.
The Travel Time dual time zone is displayed by three syringe-shaped hands in rose gold, with a luminescent coating for the local hour hand and the minute hand and a pierced center for the home hour hand. The dial also includes refined finishing touches that create eye-catching plays of light: a circular striated center, a circular satin-finished hour circle, and a snailed small-seconds counter with a rose-gilt outline.
The navy-blue calfskin strap with a nubuck finish and contrasting cream stitching is secured to the wrist by a prong buckle in rose gold.
Water-resistant to 30 metres / 100 feet, the new Patek Philippe Calatrava 24-Hour Display Travel Time Reference 5224R-001 has a suggested retail price of Euro 57,830. patek.com
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