We Take A Closer Look At Patek Philippe 5101p Replica

It doesn’t take a genius to spot why this Patek Philippe Mens Replica is special. The text may be small, it may be squeezed onto the seconds sub-dial, but it’s there, unobstructed for around thirty seconds of every minute: ‘tourbillon’. In a world of triple-axis tourbillons and even more besides, a plain jane tourbillon may not seem that special, but cast your thoughts back to 2003 when crazy complications were much thinner on the ground—that’s when this 5101P showed up as one of the pioneers of the recent tourbillon obsession.

We Take A Closer Look At Patek Philippe 5101p Replica

This was a time when Urwerk’s most outlandish piece was four-fifths plain steel, and a whole year before the tourbillon-wielding master Greubel Forsey even existed. It was also the year of the tourbillon. Of course, the tourbillon already existed in one way or another since its invention by Abraham-Louis Breguet in 1801, but for whatever reason 2003 saw an explosion of the things. Among them was the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Platinum Number Two; Piaget’s calibre 600P, what was then the world’s thinnest tourbillon at just 4.5mm thick; and of course Patek Philippe’s 5101P.

The 5101P wasn’t Patek Philippe’s first tourbillon, but it was unusual. Almost all tourbillon replica watches made by Patek Philippe came packed with complications, whereas the 5101P’s tourbillon was—aside from the impressive ten-day power reserve—alone as a complication within the calibre 28-20/222. And even more bizarre by today’s standards is the solid dial with no window through to the tourbillon itself: the replica watch has to be turned over to view it through the sapphire caseback. You can almost imagine a fifty-fifty split on votes when the design team were deciding whether or not to even include the sapphire caseback.

We Take A Closer Look At Patek Philippe 5101p Replica

Movement aside, the 5101P is an odd-looking thing. The tonneau case is curved (although the dial and the movement are not, making the replica watch quite thick) and has art deco-esque steps on the sides. To compensate for the reservedness of the hidden tourbillon, a lone diamond twinkles at six o’clock from within its platinum recess, and the copper dial flashes with texture, sending the imagination to the gleam of a not-quite-new penny. Even the hands and numerals, presented in a deep gloss black, seem like a choice made by the wildcard member of the Patek Philippe design team.