Fresh from the Showcase here at SwissWatchExpo. We're comparing the
Patek Philippe annual calendar watches the 5205 and 5905 coming right up.
When people call me and they ask about what's the best Patek Philippe watch they can buy that's
such a difficult question because it really depends on what's important to you but it's
an interesting question and something that keeps me awake at night thinking about and I think I
might have the answer for you here today one of my favorite complications is an annual calendar
and I know a lot of people come down on the side of the perpetual calendar the difference is a
perpetual calendar knows which cycle of the leap year we're in and automatically adjusts for you
so it knows which months have 30 days which have 31 but it also knows which Februaries have 28 days
and which have 29 days it can be a little bit of a challenge to keep it set right and to keep it
wound because you can actually do some damage to those movements if you set them wrong or set them
at the wrong time of day so the best thing if you've got a perpetual calendar watch is to put
it in a watch Winder let it turn the watch when you're not wearing it so it keeps going all the
time and all those settings never get off sort of a a nice bridge between the very simple Calatrava
with just the time and those grand complications is the annual calendar complication and this is
one of my favorites the difference between an annual calendar and a perpetual calendar is the
annual calendar does know which months have 30 days and which have 31 but it doesn't know which
cycle of the leap year we're in so once a year on February 28th or 29th or March 1st you'll need to
adjust the date one time per year not bad I mean I enjoy playing with my watches anyway
so it's kind of fun but just giving up that one piece of complication of whether it knows whether
it's a leap year or not results in a watch that's a lot more manageable a lot easier to
live with because it's not really hard to reset it if things get off so we have here the 5205
and it is just a a stunningly beautiful watch when you look at this watch it is such a classic
Patek Philippe design you have the the curves of the case are just beautiful the proportions are
perfect and there's really not much that I could add to the description of this watch that hasn't
been said before but it's simple it's tasteful I love this symmetrical aspect of the dial it has
the indicators for the annual calendar at 10, 12 and, 2 and then a indicator at six that's centered
and it has a running second hand that you can see is actually going and it's a watch that definitely
flies a little under the radar if you're out at a Braves game cheering on your hometown favorites
not necessarily going to draw a lot of attention on the watch the gentle curves of the case I think
are just beautiful it's a delicate dedicated annual calendar this is a 40-millimeter case
and it does have the the moonphase and the 24 hour scale at six a lot of people really love
that moo phase function not sure if anyone actually uses it nowadays we're not really
mostly fishermen or people running uh moonshine in the middle of the night so we need that light of
the moon but it's a beautiful feature I love the moonphase on a watch it just looks really good
the way the dial is set up they have these sort of concentric chapter rings is the way it's set
up with sort of sectors and it's just a really beautiful execution of the way they've done the
dial of course it has the exhibition caseback so that you can see all of that Patek Philippe
attention to detail with their perlage and the Cotes de Geneve the handcrafted movement with
all of the decoration that goes into it and this has the Patek Philippe deployant buckle as well
so this one's a great pick and at 40 millimeters it's a very wearable size for most people large
wrists are small it's going to look great on you and I would have no complaints with this being the
one that you pick as the best Patek Philippe watch there is now for me when I see this one next to it
it's pretty obvious that it's a good bit bigger we're talking about the difference between a 40
millimeter watch and 42 millimeter it's not a big difference on paper but in real life on your wrist
it's a pretty significant difference between the two but then we get to the mechanics of it as well
so this is the 5905 it was released in 2015 this one that I have in my hand is a 2019 model and
it really combines probably the two most useful complications that it has the annual calendar
but it also has a flyback chronograph so the great thing about this one it does have the pushers here
for the chronograph and then it has the adjusters for the annual calendar on the side but they're
they're discreetly hidden away but when you start the chronograph it is a flyback which means you
can start the chronograph the second hand starts going it has a minutes counter at 6 o'clock
you can stop if your event is over with the top pusher and then restart after you've recorded
the time but let's say you're doing laps and you can see that your car or horse or whatever it is
has finished the first lap and you can make a mental note of what that time is and then you can
press the bottom button to instantly restart and that way you don't lose that second that it takes
to start stop and reset it just instantly resets and that's what's called the flyback chronograph
so this watch combines both of those one of the things I love about this one is that when you
wind it it just feels so silky smooth it has ceramic bearings in the movement and it just
makes it feel like the way you would think a Patek Philippe should feel the dial of this blue dial is
just the perfect shade and saturation everything about it is just the perfect execution for me the
minutes counter for the chronograph is the small dial at six so they really got away from the
chronograph having two or three sub-dials and they've made this watch with a vertical clutch
mechanism on the chronograph and what that means is that you could start the chronograph and just
let it run all the time and so that big second hand for the chronograph could actually be your
running seconds because there's not a secondary running seconds hand on this watch but they
thought of everything and they thought you know some people are going to want that and so they
did make it a vertical clutch movement so it's no problem at all to leave it running all the time it
won't cause any extra wear on the movement like it would on a lateral clutch movement
one of the things that I like about this one too is that down in the six o'clock sub-dial
it has a danger zone indicator so it turns white when it's time that you could change
the day the day to the month uh set the time no worries whatsoever so that's from 6 AM to 6 PM
but at 6 PM it changes to Bback and that tells you that you're in the danger zone don't change
anything about the setting of the day or the date or the month or anything like that when
you're in the danger zone because you could actually harm the movement you could break
off some of those teeth if it's trying to change automatically and you change it manually you can
really do some damage and on a watch like this I mean let's face it, it could take a good bit
of time and some money to get that repaired so you don't want to do that and it's great that
they put it on the dial so you can see it and it will warn you if you're in the danger zone
on the movement again it's the similar movement to the other watch except it has that
flyback chronograph it's a 21-carat gold rotor that you can see and it has all the decoration
you would expect this movement is a 55-hour timer reserve and it's accurate to minus three to plus
two seconds a day so if I had to pick between the two it would be a tough choice because
the 40-millimeter the 5205 is definitely more subtle a little more under the radar a little
more of a dressy watch size and the 40-millimeter but the 5905 at 42-millimeter beautiful blue dial
is definitely more casual being a larger size and a blue dial and it has the functions that I think
really are the most useful complications you can get
all combined on one watch so if I had to pick just one maybe I would come down on this one day and
this one another day I'm not sure but today I'm kind of feeling this one so give us a call here
at SwissWatchExpo we'll be happy to go over all the Patek Philippe watches that we have in stock
we usually have a couple hundred of them and which is a couple hundred more than we had at the Patek
Philippe dealer that I used to work for before I came here so it's always exciting that we actually
have watches in stock ready to ship today and we have a great selection we have vintage watches
going back to the 1940s and 50s a lot of times with Patek Philippe all the way up
through the current lineup so give us a call and we'll be happy to go over the inventory
with you and we'll be happy to offer a live video call Via FaceTime or Zoom or Whatsapp
and we'll show you our store in our service center as well as individual watches.