Patek Philippe has been renowned - for more than a century now - one of the most important watchmakers in the world. Over the decades, many different complications and styles were tackled by the company, but three main product lines have become nearly synonymous with the brand: the line of perpetual calendar chronographs with moonphases, the minute repeating watches, and the here epitomised world time line of timepiece. First realised in very few numbers in the 1940s and 1950s, the complication was rediscovered by the brand in the 1990s and is today a staple of their offering. One of the reasons of this success is undoubtedly the legendary cloisonné polychrome enamel versions of the mid-twentieth century, exemplified by the present masterpiece.
Production of reference 605HU - for Heures Universelles (universal hours in French) - commenced in 1937, continuing up to the late 1960s. These models were available either with metal dials or, in some rare instances, cloisonné enamel dials representing maps (a leitmotif of PP World Time watches, found on wrist versions as well, both vintage and modern) or other themes, and the production of every single piece was made under the supervision of the inventor of the World Time system, Louis Cottier - who also handmade the hands of the watches, to ensure perfect functionality and lack of friction with the dials. In fact, the “LC” monogram of the watchmaker is present - together with the watch movement number - on the back of the enamel disc. As far as we know, these Cottier signatures are the only example of a watchmaker’s signature on Patek Philippe timepieces, which highlights in how high a regard Mr. Cottier was held by the company.
Time is indicated with hour and minute hands at center - featuring the signature “Cottier hands” - and the city of choice (local time zone) is placed at the 12 o'clock position. After this simple procedure, the watch displays on the 24-hour ring the correct time for every time zone in the world: an extremely elegant solution which unsurprisingly has survived virtually unchanged until today.
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.
According to the Extract, the present lot was born in 1948 with a silver dial, however the enamel dial bears to the back the movement number of the watch - thus unequivocally linking dial and watch. This apparent contradiction can be solved by considering that pocket watches were going out of fashion during that time in favour of wristwatches. In fact, the present piece lingered for 5 years in the company’s inventory before being finally sold in 1953. It is more than likely that the new dial was fitted to the watch during this time, to improve its marketability. In fact, the same situation is known with watch number 930’837 (the number immediately before this one): bearing today a polychrome enamel map bearing the watch number to the back, according to its Extract it was born as well in 1948 with metal dial and sold 8 years later, in 1956. The obvious deduction is that this batch of watches was upgraded sometime around 1950s with enamel dials, unfortunately without the info of the upgrade making its way to the Archives.
A little over a dozen reference 605HU in yellow gold with cloisonné enamel dials are known. Only 4 examples depicting North America and a palm tree - a subtle detail missing from the North America dials made for worldtime wristwatches - have so far been identified, underlining the extreme rarity of these models.
Adding a layer of historical interest, the present world time was offered by Banco de Credito Industrial to Joaquin Planell in 1968 as testified by the hand-engraving on the back, exquisitely preserved.
Joaquin Planell was born on November 22, 1891 in Spain. A high military ranking officer turned politician, he was Minister of Industry from 1951 to 1962. During his period as Minister of Industry he undertook the enormous task of implementing, structuring and developing the Spanish industry leading to economic growth and a surge in industrialization. For health reasons Joaquin Planell left his position as Minister in 1962 to join Banco de Credito Industrial which he left in 1968, on which occasion he received the present watch as a gift.
