5950R Patek Philippe Split Seconds

This is the 5950R-010, one of low single digit examples that have surfaced in pink on pink, one of fifteen made in totality. It’s a monopusher split seconds, about the most serious chronograph configuration that exists—all in 36.5mm. This calibre 27-525 PS was not just the thinnest split, but the first entirely in-house Patek chronograph ever made—it’s not the 5170 much as we love it. This was the start, and what a start it is.

The 5950 launched at Baselworld 2010 in steel, and that was the real shock: a Patek grand complication in steel. Collectors still treat it as an endgame. The 5950A-001 ran to about 2015, followed by the 5950/1A on bracelet in a handful of dials, several reportedly in runs of ten. Pink gold came only in 2016, twice: the silvered 5950R-001 and this -010, each reportedly 15 pieces. There is no platinum 5950. Platinum went to the sister 5951P, which adds a perpetual calendar. By 2017, Patek’s catalogue held no cushion-cased grand complication at all, leaving these as a beautiful quirk of history not repeated.

The point is the calibre. CHR 27-525 PS debuted in the 2005 5959P, the thinnest split-seconds ever made at launch and Patek’s first fully in-house chronograph. Phillips says Patek made no split between the vintage two-pusher 1436 (about 165 made, 1938–1971) and the 5959. That skips the Lemania-based 5004R, but the 5959 was the first split Patek built entirely itself. The 5959 was retired in 2018.

The calibre name is a spec sheet, 27mm wide and 5.25mm tall. This watch’s case number, 6'143'986, is five below that of the 2021 Phillips example, which was dated 2016. So the 2018 watch was likely cased in the same batch and delivered later. That 2021 piece was the reference’s auction debut and made CHF 390,600 on the same estimate. Phillips calls this only the second to surface, which holds for auctions; our earlier Find tracked one privately, possibly this very watch but who knows. Even the spare solid caseback and buckle carry black lacquered scrolls, borrowed from a single-button gold split in the Patek Museum. It is a marvelous, entirely badass and historic split.