PATEK PHILIPPE REF. 5711/1A-014 NAUTILUS

What do you think of when someone says “Patek Philippe“? The über-complex Grand Complications, with their insane perpetual calendars, celestial chart dials, chimes and tiny orreries that unfold and operate at the push of a concealed button? The restrained Calatravas, with their distillation of watchness into a simple, single series of elegant dials? Or maybe it’s the non-nonsense Genta-designed Ref. 5711/1A Nautilus?

You’d have to be living in a very dark cave indeed not to know that Patek has announced they’re discontinuing the stainless Nautilus – and the corresponding rocket-launch trajectory of second-hand prices. This green-dialled 5711 is the model’s swansong. Way to go, Plan-les-Ouates.

The design for the 5711 that made it to production is remarkably like Genta’s original restaurant napkin sketch (if legend is to be believed) and perhaps best summed up as ‘deceptively plain’. But there are so many tiny details that just make it work. The bezel which, at first sight, looks appropriately porthole-like actually has eight subtle but distinct facets that reflect the light and take weight away from what would otherwise be a slabby piece of steel. The inside edge carries the same facets, lightening it still further. Try using your hand to mask the protrusion on the left side of the case; ugly now, isn’t it? That visual balancing weight on the case’s left, opposing the crown guard, equalises the whole thing and makes it work. Then there’s the way the crown guard itself slopes down, snugging it visually towards your wrist. And those bezel lines flow through into the bracelet, again lessening its weight.

Next, look at the mix of polishing and satin-finishing. Change that bezel face to a polished surface and you’re back in Slabtown again. The brushing lifts and lightens, with the polished edge differentiating the bezel from the case and bracelet. This takes 55 different hand finishing steps before it’s complete. All in all the entire watch is a case study in how ‘simple’ and ‘easy’ are really not the same thing.

And there’s been plenty of scope for Patek with the Nautilus; there are now 25 different versions of the watch. You can have yours in everything from stainless (present company), rose gold, white gold or two tone gold, with a strap or with a bracelet. But it says a lot for Genta’s original conception that the overall design was only slightly re-worked in 2006, thirty years after the watch was launched; this in an industry where ‘novelties’ are so prized.

So what’s different about the new Patek Philippe Ref. 5711/1A-014 Nautilus Swansong? It’s the dial colour. Now that may not seem like a big deal, but it is – really. Patek don’t go around changing dial colours for fun. The first of the new watches post-2006 30th anniversary had a blue, black graduated dial, followed in 2012 by a silver white dial and then in 2015 by a brown-to-black graduated tint on the rose gold model. This new Ref. 5711/1A-014 is what Patek is calling ‘olive green’. It would have been fascinating to see how the Patek team ended up with this particular shade. In large organisations, change like this usually requires an entire saga of meetings – but was the initial colour suggestion so on-the-money that everyone just went for it? Either way, it’s a fine fit with its fellow Nautili.

The dial surface, like the rest of the watch, has a simple visual device that elevates it; the horizontal ridges that allow light to play across it, creating areas of dark and shadow that shift as your wrist moves. And that olive green will, we suspect, work in pretty much any context – rather like the watch itself.

Inside the case of the Patek Philippe Ref. 5711/1A-014 Nautilus is the cal. 26-330 S C movement that has been powering the Nautilus since 2019. Looking through the display back, you can enjoy just watching it do its thing; it’s a bit of a beauty. Evolved from the cal. 324 S C (that powers Calatravas, Aquanauts and other Nautili alike), it runs at 28,800vph (4Hz) with a Spiromax balance spring and a Gyromax four-spoke, four-weight micro-adjustable balance. It has five fewer parts at 212 but one more jewel (30 in total). Although the movement is capable of a day/week number complication, there’s no need on the restrained Nautilus dial with just a date. There’s a single, central rotor (just look at that engraving) with some very clever watchmaking indeed in the winding system. The movement also hacks. Actually, that sounds far too basic – it has a ‘stop-seconds’ system. Much better.

It’s a properly practical watch too, as well as being a fine example of Genta’s design. The stainless steel case, despite the display back, will happily dip 120m underwater without any fuss. As we’ve often pointed out, given that recreational divers seldom venture much deeper than 40m, this shouldn’t present anyone not called Cousteau with a problem.

Although we’ve seen the watch retailing at £26,870, there’s a waiting list so long that people are adding their unborn children’s names to it and there are already reports of it making ten times retail price. There’s no doubting the 5711 is an icon, not to mention a beautiful watch and a classic design in its own right. It’s perhaps then a little sad to see it flying out of the reach of so many collectors.