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Lot Essay
US$166,000-270,000
With Patek Philippe Certificate of Origin dated 2 January 2009, Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres, sales tag, instruction manual, product literature, fitted presentation box and outer packaging.
Consigned by a private distinguished collector, the present lot is fresh to the market and in outstanding condition.
It takes much more than a cursory glance at Patek Philippe's debut showpiece for Basel 2003 to realise that reference 5101P is a highly complicated wristwatch. In fact it is the first timepiece that combines two complications which are very difficult to accommodate in the confined space of a rectangular movement: two tandem mainspring barrels with 240 hours of energy storage capacity and a tourbillon precision regulator composed of 72 individual parts.
Characteristic for Patek Philippe, hardly any signs on the outside of the piece would reveal the complexity of its inner workings. Understated elegance has always been a hallmark of Patek Philippe but the tourbillon cage is in fact concealed for a very practical reason - the oil used to lubricate the mechanism is sensitive to ultraviolet rays and will decompose when exposed to daylight, thus losing its beneficial tribological properties. Extremely stringent standards are imposed on all Patek Philippe movements and even more so on tourbillon pieces. The reference 5101 in platinum features the distinctive feature of carrying both the official C.O.S.C. (Contrôle Officiel Suisse de Chronomètre) certification and the Geneva Seal.
With Patek Philippe Certificate of Origin dated 2 January 2009, Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres, sales tag, instruction manual, product literature, fitted presentation box and outer packaging.
Consigned by a private distinguished collector, the present lot is fresh to the market and in outstanding condition.
It takes much more than a cursory glance at Patek Philippe's debut showpiece for Basel 2003 to realise that reference 5101P is a highly complicated wristwatch. In fact it is the first timepiece that combines two complications which are very difficult to accommodate in the confined space of a rectangular movement: two tandem mainspring barrels with 240 hours of energy storage capacity and a tourbillon precision regulator composed of 72 individual parts.
Characteristic for Patek Philippe, hardly any signs on the outside of the piece would reveal the complexity of its inner workings. Understated elegance has always been a hallmark of Patek Philippe but the tourbillon cage is in fact concealed for a very practical reason - the oil used to lubricate the mechanism is sensitive to ultraviolet rays and will decompose when exposed to daylight, thus losing its beneficial tribological properties. Extremely stringent standards are imposed on all Patek Philippe movements and even more so on tourbillon pieces. The reference 5101 in platinum features the distinctive feature of carrying both the official C.O.S.C. (Contrôle Officiel Suisse de Chronomètre) certification and the Geneva Seal.