SIGNED PATEK PHILIPPE, GENEVE, REF. 3940J-028, CIRCA 2018

Fresh to the market and, to the best of our knowledge, the first example to be offered at international auction, it is one of the exciting special production/request watches that were officially authorized to be made as ‘out of series’ pieces. The present watch has a black dial which has been specially created for this sub-reference using the dial print type of the reference 5140 and yellow gold indexes to match the yellow gold case. Its highly individual aesthetic places this watch as one of the most desirable of Patek Philippe’s 21st century perpetual calendars.

The standard production 3940 – automatic perpetual calendar with moon phase, was introduced in 1984 and discontinued in 2007. However, the present watch was made around 2018, some 11 years after production of reference 3940 officially ceased. Such ‘out of series’ watches were made only in tiny quantities such as those made for the 2015 Patek Philippe London Exibition, and in some instances others were made as unique pieces. These special production watches also provided the perfect opportunity for Patek to be more adventurous with dial design so that the dials of these rarefied 3940s were also unlike any standard production 3940 dials. The dial for the present watch is interesting for several reasons; black was only available on the platinum version of the original 3940, a black dial with yellow gold indexes is extremely unusual; the dial type is the same as that used for the 3940’s successor, the 5140 with its larger print font.