It is interesting how certain complications are immediately associated with certain brands, and the worldtime and Patek Philippe are indissociable.
We owe the standardization of time zones as we know them today to the persistence of Scottish railroad engineer Stanford Fleming who, after missing a train in Ireland in 1876, began to look for a way to standardize time (at the time sometimes villages who were only kilometers apart didn’t share the same time!).
Speaking before the Royal Canadian Institute in Toronto in 1879, he proposed to divide the Earth into 24 time zones of 15° each, one hour apart with a universal time for each individual zone. However, as with most revelations that threaten to change the world, his idea was met with considerable resistance from governments and scientific communities. Fleming’s persistence paid off and his idea was finally adopted in 1884 in Washington, when the 25 nations taking part in the International Meridian Conference decided that the prime meridian of 0° longitude would pass through Greenwich, England.
Fleming’s contribution to the creation of the world time watch did not stop with the creation of the world’s first system of standardized time, Sir Sandford went further than that. In 1880, Fleming commissioned a watch manufacturer in London to construct a unique pocket watch that would accurately reflect his proposal, and so was born the “Cosmic Time” pocket watch. The times for each of the 24 “zones” in Fleming’s system were depicted on a single dial, making his “Cosmic Time” pocket watch the world’s first world time watch as we know it.
However, surprisingly the world time watch seemed of little interest to watchmakers until genius watchmaker Louis Cottier designed a pocket watch movement featuring a local time with hour and minute hands at center, linked to a rotating 24hour ring, and bordered by a fixed outer dial ring with the names of different cities inscribed on it. The city of choice (local time zone) was placed at the 12 o'clock position with the hours/minutes hand set at local time, the watch would then display the correct time in both hours and minutes, night and day, for every time zone in the world simultaneously, all the while allowing easy and accurate reading of local time, and all on a single dial.
Cottier miniaturized his invention in the late 1930s which first appeared in the Patek Philippe reference 1415, a single crown model with its bezel engraved with cities to be switched manually.
Launched in 1953, the reference 2523 featured a new two-crown system, one for winding the watch and the other at 9 o’clock controlling the city disc. Two versions were available, reference 2523 with larger lugs sitting above the bezel and reference 2523/1 with a slightly larger diameter and thinner lugs no longer sitting above the bezel.
When introduced to the market this new double crown world time was not a commercial success resulting in very few pieces manufactured.
According to research, nine reference 2523/1 were known all case metal and dial combinations...until now. It is exhilarating to have discovered the tenth reference 2523/1, fresh to the market and part of the earlier models made. In fact it is only two case numbers apart from the reference 2523/1 bearing the Tiffany &Co. signature (case N° 313'036) sold by Phillips in May 14, 2017 for CHF 1,450,000 in Geneva.
Patek Philippe stopped the production of world time watches in the late 1960s with the passing away of Louis Cottier and this complication came back into the Patek Philippe catalogue only in 2000 with the reference 5110.
Fresh and unknown to the market, the present lot from a private collection, stands out thanks to its superb condition. The distinctive faceted lugs, the case with its polished and brushed surfaces and the superb dial make the present lot one of the most desirable watches to have left the ateliers of Patek Philippe.
The 41 cities inscribed on the dial with their exotic sounding names bring us back to the heyday of travelling, to a time when flying or sailing across the globe was an excitement, glamorous and adventurous.
It is interesting to note that the present example lists London and Paris on the same time zone, Greenwich Mean Time. On June 15th, 1940, Paris converted to Central European Time and for many years, it was thought that Paris would eventually revert back to GMT which explains why many reference 605 HU made well in the 50s or 60s still list Paris and London on the same timezone.
Vintage Patek Philippe world time watches are rare but finding one in such superb condition makes this timepiece a grail.