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Lot Essay
With Patek Philippe Extract from the Archives confirming production of the present watch with rose dial, applied rose gold hour markers and pulsometer scale in 1939 and its subsequent sale on 1st July 1940.
Since its first appearance at a Christie's New York auction in 1984, the watch has not returned to the public. Already at the time it featured the highly unusual telemetre dial, the only known mounted on a reference 685. Consigned by a private collector it has obviously hardly been used and is preserved in very good overall condition.
Reference 658 was introduced to the market in the late 1930s and made in a very small series only. According to research, only three examples of this reference in pink gold have appeared in public to date.
Telemetre scales are used to measure the distance of an occurrence which is both visible and audible. The chronograph hand is released at the instant the phenomenon is seen and stopped when the sound is heard, its position on the scale showing the distance in kilometres or miles separating the event from the observer.
This feature was most notably used for military purposes, where artillery forces can judge the distance of bombs that they are firing - or that are being fired at them. A civil use of the telemetre scale may include the judging of how far away a storm is by activating the chronograph when one sees the lightning flash. When hearing the thunder, the hand is stopped and shows the wearer the distance of the approaching storm.
Since its first appearance at a Christie's New York auction in 1984, the watch has not returned to the public. Already at the time it featured the highly unusual telemetre dial, the only known mounted on a reference 685. Consigned by a private collector it has obviously hardly been used and is preserved in very good overall condition.
Reference 658 was introduced to the market in the late 1930s and made in a very small series only. According to research, only three examples of this reference in pink gold have appeared in public to date.
Telemetre scales are used to measure the distance of an occurrence which is both visible and audible. The chronograph hand is released at the instant the phenomenon is seen and stopped when the sound is heard, its position on the scale showing the distance in kilometres or miles separating the event from the observer.
This feature was most notably used for military purposes, where artillery forces can judge the distance of bombs that they are firing - or that are being fired at them. A civil use of the telemetre scale may include the judging of how far away a storm is by activating the chronograph when one sees the lightning flash. When hearing the thunder, the hand is stopped and shows the wearer the distance of the approaching storm.