In my opinion this is a Patek Philippe watch you just don’t see every day. Not sure if it is still being made, but this is a Patek Philippe Ref. 5085 and is quite stunning for what it is. You really don’t see a lot of Patek Philippe watches on metal bracelets aside from the sport themed Nautilus. This piece is extremely classic in style, and very legible. The movement is always quite pretty.

Interestingly enough there are at least two types of casebacks for this watch. Some have exhibition casebacks and some have solid metal casebacks with the Patek Philippe Calatrava Cross logo on it. Why two versions? I don’t think. Not sure if one is more rare than the other.

Coming in a 37mm wide steel case, this isn’t a very large watch, but in line with the size of most Patek Philippe classic watches. I love the highly polished rounded steel bezel and very utilitarian feeling hands and hour markers. The hands have thin strips of lume while the hour markers are accompanied by lume squares. The black dial and while indicators make for a very legible high contrast face.

Inside the watch is a Patek Philippe 240 automatic movement with a solid gold micro-rotor. Love the look of it, with typical beautiful Patek Philippe decoration. The asymmetrical dial layout is still visually balanced. The movement shows up in a few other Patek Philippe watch and has the time, date, moon phase, subsidiary seconds dial, and a power reserve indicator. Patek Philippe has other movements that feature the same information in a more symmetrical manner. So it is really all about the visual style that you prefer.

For me this Patek Philippe watch is different enough to be interesting. It is not a youthful watch, but it isn’t stuffy either. The man who wears this piece is serious but not boring. In steel, the watch also has a very humble essence, but is still a luxury timepiece being a Patek Philippe and having an almost jewelry style bracelet to it. Retail price for this likely discontinued model was almost $22,000, but can be found online these days still new for a few thousand less.

See a Patek Philippe Ref. 5085 watch available on James List here.