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– By Logan Baker
If you woke up early on the morning of February 1, just a few short weeks ago, and found your way to Patek Philippe’s website, you might have been surprised to discover that a number of the brand's most popular references were no longer present.
Outside of very specific circumstances (looking at you, 5711) Patek Philippe doesn’t communicate with media when it discontinues a watch. Yes, unfortunately that means there will be no official press release coming out of Geneva to announce that your favorite Gondolo disappeared off the brand's website. Patek notifies its retail network, removes the watches from its digital platforms, and well, that’s about it.
Which means, among collectors and other members of the watch cognoscenti, the annual February 1 scramble to determine which exact watches have been removed from Patek Philippe’s website is partially a treasure hunt and partially an exercise in recollection.
It didn’t take long for a consensus to form. Specialist watch media outlets such as Hodinkee quickly provided a breakdown of what appeared to be the 11 individual models that disappeared off Patek Philippe’s web presence on February 1.
The absence of the Nautilus Chronograph Date ref. 5980/1R and the Nautilus Moon Phase ref. 5712 (in both 18k white gold and 18k pink gold variations) were both quickly noted, but it didn’t take long before collectors noticed a specific reference newly missing from the Aquanaut section of Patek’s website. The popular Aquanaut Travel Time ref. 5164A, cased in stainless steel, was gone. “Patek Discontinues Fan Favorite 5164A,” the Hodinkee headline blared. (However, it is worth noting that the 5164R, cased in 18k pink gold, remains in the catalog for the time being.)
Its discontinuation was both a surprise as well as something that wasn't overly shocking when you thought about it. The 5164A was introduced all the way back in 2011, which made it what I believe was one of the oldest references still in production at Patek Philippe, especially after the fairly recent demise of the Nautilus 5711 (introduced in 2006).
But the 5164A also had a certain cultural cache that counted scores of legendary watch collectors among its ownership ranks. John Mayer is the icon that's most frequently associated with the model, as he frequently wears a Tiffany & Co.-signed example on stage while performing. Ellen DeGeneres is also a known fan of the model.
The most important 5164A supporter, however, is one that potentially came from inside Patek Philippe’s headquarters. The model was long rumored to be Patek Philippe President Thierry Stern's go-to watch to wear while traveling.
The ref. 5164A is important for Patek Philippe not only for being a very cool, highly wearable complicated sport wristwatch, but also for what it did in elevating the perception of the Aquanaut within the international collector community.
It holds significance for being the first Aquanaut ever equipped with any sort of additonal complication outside of a humble date aperture, as well as for housing the inaugural implementation of Patek Philippe's updated Travel Time mechanism, which utilizes a skeletonized central hand to indicate a second time-zone on the dial. This dual-time hand can be independently adjusted in one-hour increments by engaging with the two pushers on the left-hand side of the caseband.
It’s notable that Patek Philippe selected the Aquanaut as the launchpad for its new-gen Travel-Time series. Why not introduce it inside a new watch inside the brand's broadly named “Complications” line-up? Or, why not just drop it in a Nautilus?
Since the Aquanaut's launch in the late 1990s, the model had occasionally been described – rather pejoratively – as Patek Philippe’s second-class sport watch. It came to market just over two decades after the Nautilus was released, in 1976; the Aquanaut officially arrived in 1997. The Aquanaut was also less expensive than the Nautilus, and it was frequently presented on a rubber strap compared to the immediately recognizable design of the Nautilus’ metal bracelet.
Attention shifted favorably toward the Aquanaut after the 5164A’s debut. If you wanted to wear what was arguably the most casual take on a Patek Philippe travel watch ever created, you had to opt for an Aquanaut over either a Nautilus or one of Patek’s legendary complicated dress-adjacent wristwatches. A similar Travel Time mechanism was eventually added to the Nautilus family two years later, in 2014, with the launch of the Nautilus Travel Time Chronograph ref. 5990. Even if you preferred the Nautilus, you still – to this day – can only get the brand's now-signature Travel Time complication paired with a chronograph mechanism (in the 5990), which naturally had a drastic impact on the difference in MSRP between the 5164A and 5990.
The ref. 5164A is a very significant watch when understanding the evolution of Patek Philippe in the popular imagination over the past two-and-a-half decades. It’s hard to think of another reference – outside, perhaps, once again, the Nautilus 5711 – that contributed to such a drastic evolution in the public perception of the 185-year-old Swiss watchmaker.
The Phillips PERPETUAL team in London recently sourced a tremendous example of the stainless steel ref. 5164A-001, dated to 2016, that comes complete with its full range of accessories, including the Certificate of Origin, a polished wooden presentation box, a wallet, numerous booklets, and a stylus.
The Aquanaut Travel Time ref. 5164A pictured in this article is available now for immediate purchase for £54,000; you can view the watch's complete listing, right here.
You can learn more about the above watches and see all the currently in-stock watches online at Phillips PERPETUAL.
Phillips PERPETUAL offers a boutique experience to clients for both the sale and purchase of fine and rare watches, in London’s Berkeley Square and the Gstaad Palace, in Switzerland.
About Logan Baker
Logan has spent the past decade reporting on every aspect of the watch business. He joined Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo at the start of 2023 as the department's Senior Editorial Manager. He splits his time between New York and Geneva.
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