The PHILLIPS New York Watch Auction: XIII takes place on 6-7 December 2025, at our Park Avenue headquarters. The auction includes more than 140 of the world's finest watches – and though we are loath to boast, we truly think it's one of the best catalogues we've ever put together. We'll be highlighting a number of the most interesting lots and stories featured in the sale right here, including the fresh-to-market, 1950s Patek Philippe Chronograph Ref. 1463 with Breguet numerals seen below.
– By Logan Baker
Patek Philippe’s Ref. 1463 sits in a small group of watches that helped to define mid-century chronograph design.
The case feels purposeful. The pushers feel confident. The profile looks sleek even when the watch is sitting still. Italian collectors dubbed it the "Tasti Tondi" because of its round, engraved pushers – but the watch earned its reputation through a simple idea. It was a refined Patek Philippe chronograph that you could actually wear in the elements.
The Ref. 1463 was born in 1940 as a follow-up to the earlier chronograph Ref. 130 and Ref. 530. Those watches set a high bar. They wore well, they looked elegant, and they helped establish Patek’s design language for manual-wind chronographs. But they were not water-resistant. The 1463 changed that.
Patek collaborated with Taubert Frères to develop a screw-down caseback with tighter tolerances, a sturdier oversize crown, and the striking round pump pushers that sealed the openings against humidity and dust while maintaining ease of operation. Suddenly, Patek Philippe was offering a gentleman’s chronograph built to survive rain, hand washing, and a more active lifestyle. For collectors today, that practicality also explains why so many Ref. 1463 examples survived in strong condition.
Patek Philippe produced approximately 750 examples of the Ref. 1463 over a period of roughly 25 years. Most were made in yellow gold. A smaller number appeared in pink gold. And only a small fraction left the factory in stainless steel. The steel watches leaned even further into the sporty side of the design. They also felt like the reference stripped to its essentials.
The example offered at the upcoming Phillips New York Watch Auction: XIII stands at the top of that group. It is a stainless-steel watch with applied steel Breguet numerals and a dial that shows gentle, honest aging. Research suggests that no more than 20 examples of the steel Ref. 1463 with Breguet numerals are known – and this one is fresh-to-market from the family of the original owner.
The watch's case remains thick. Its dial retains the raised enamel short signature, along with the accent on the "è" in "Genève", which is still visible. The watch is also accompanied by its original Certificate of Origin, stamped "Patek Philippe Watch Co., 587 Fifth Avenue, New York", anchoring it directly to the period when Patek’s New York salon served as a gateway for American collectors.
Breguet numerals always give a Patek dial extra presence, and on the Ref. 1463, they're especially attractive. They soften the dual chronograph registers and introduce a sense of refinement that plays against the more aggressive case profile. It demonstrates that the design of the Ref. 1463 never relied on a single feature. The case, the pushers, the stepped bezel, and the dial all carried their own weight.
Inside the watch sits the familiar manual-wind 13-ligne calibre that powered many of Patek’s mid-century chronographs. For many collectors, this movement represents the pinnacle of Patek’s pre-automatic chronograph work and is one of the most satisfying hand-wound calibres the company ever produced.
So few steel Ref. 1463s with Breguet numerals remain in such exceptional original condition that the significance of this watch is immediately apparent. The sharp lines and strong proportions of the case are how they should be; in our opinion, the watch is possibly unpolished. Watches like this reveal how the reference was intended to look and feel long before it became a cornerstone of vintage watch collecting.
The Ref. 1463 represented a shift in Patek’s thinking. It offered a chronograph designed for a world that was becoming increasingly more mobile and adventurous. The steel versions push that idea even further, and the Breguet numeral examples like this one sit at the very top of the collecting pyramid.
You can view the complete Phillips New York Watch Auction: XIII auction catalogue here.