Seeing Patek Philippe’s Most Complicated Watch Worth $2.6 Million Get Built Is Incredible

You must witness the precise craftsmanship that goes into building a Grandmaster Chime Ref. 5175 worth over $2.6 million.

Listen, I don’t spend my time viewing many 10 minute YouTube videos especially ones about how a watch is made, but seeing how much technical artistry is put into making a Grandmaster Chime timepiece is actually very extraordinary.

Patek Philippe is celebrating its 175th anniversary by creating the most sophisticated wristwatch they’ve ever built. The Grandmaster Chime Ref. 5175 will be extremely limited in production with only seven being constructed, and one of those will find a home at the Patek Philippe museum in Geneva.

This astonishing machine has 1,580 separate components, and boasts 20 complications, the most that Patek Phillipe has ever made in one watch. Complications are information that a clock can present and are the measurement of how impressive a watch is.

Here are the 20 complications that the Grandmaster Chime offers:

Grande Sonnerie
Petite Sonnerie
Minute repeater
Strikework mode display (Silence/Grand Sonnerie/Petite Sonnerie)
Alarm with time strike
Date repeater
Movement power-reserve indicator
Strikework power-reserve indicator
Strikework isolator display
Second time zone
Second time zone day/night indicator
Instantaneous perpetual calendar
Day-of-week display
Month display
Date display (on both dials)
Leap year cycle
Four-digit year display
24-hour and minute subdial
Moon phase
Crown position indicator

Made from 18K rose gold, the double-face case has a diameter of 47 mm and 16.1mm thick. It is elaborately hand engraved with an intricate designs nearly all over the timepiece. The two dials are roughly divided between the clock on the front and the calendar on the back.

As Swizz Beats says, “On my watch, the Patek Philippe.”

[Reddit]