Created as a commemorative piece for the manufacture's 175th anniversary in 2014, the Grandmaster Chime joined Patek Philippe's current collection in 2016. Abandoning the relief engravings with laurel leaf motif, it opted for a Clous de Paris guilloché decoration for the white gold case, combined with a double black and white dial. After a new version also in white gold but with both blue opaline dials in 2019, this year it is offered for the first time in a two-tone white and pink gold variant, with the two opaline brown dials.
This model is not only Patek Philippe's first wristwatch with large and small chime, it is also the brand's most complicated wristwatch in current production. Its 20 complications, divided between the two dials, include five sound functions, grand strike, small strike, minute repeater and two patented world exclusives: the acoustic alarm that sounds the preset time and the date repeater that sounds the day of the calendar that can be activated on demand.
A push-button activates the chime and the watch strikes a double high-pitched chime for each decade of the month's date, followed by a high-pitched chime for each day since the last decade.
The case, embellished with a hand-guilloché Clous de Paris decoration, is distinguished by its patented rotation mechanism, which allows the watch to be worn, at will, with either dial facing upwards. The first dial shows the hours and minutes with gold-applied Breguet numerals and pink gold Poire hands.
The back dial is dominated in the centre by the four-digit digital year display. This is the dial that, once the case is tilted between the lugs, displays all the perpetual calendar indications. The calendar features two additional complications: the simultaneous and instantaneous release of indications, apart from the digital year, and the aforementioned date repeater.
The movement is the manual calibre 300 GS AL 36-750 QIS FUS IRM with two barrels: one for the movement, the other for the striking mechanism. It is fitted with a dark brown patinated alligator strap with a white and pink gold folding clasp and is accompanied by white gold cufflinks with an opaline brown centre decorated with hand-guilloché Clous de Paris and a pink gold Calatrava cross.
Price2,500,000 Swiss francs.
