5040G Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar

Shaped watches are often overlooked and there might be no case more unjustly maligned than the Patek Philippe 5040. The 5040 is the lesser famous Don Swayze to the 3940’s Patrick Swayze. Why is that? This is a micro-rotor cal 240Q perpetual calendar, same as the 3940, in a Tortue-like case. But for all the awards and admiration the CPCP Tortue receives, the 5040 hears crickets. It’s almost like the watch the CPCP Tortue Perpetual wants to be when it grows up, the calibres are incomparable. When it debuted in 1992, the world thought Patek Philippe had lost their marbles. The market sort of proved that they had in ’92 with slow sale, but today, the more avant-garde, turtle-loving collectors are proving otherwise.

There are many points of attraction here, but you can’t overlook the Breguet numerals, pomme hands, and feuille subdial hands, above the perfect combination man has yet created. This was actually the first serially produced Patek Philippe with Breguet numerals. And it’s a sigma dial. The details really do just keep giving, but that’s before we approach the 240Q, Patek’s first serially produced perpetual calendar movement. The thinnest of its kind then at 3.75mm, the 240Q was by some measure the most reliable, thin, and longest reserve movement on the market. It doesn’t look it, but the whole case is under 9mm thin. Patek even engineered a new gear tooth shape to avoid frictional losses and used a 22k winding mass instead of 18. It is estimated that 3350 examples of the 5040 were produced, of that roughly 500 are thought to have been made in this white gold.

Yet, the market for the 5040 has remained as invariably constant and undramatic as the Swiss who made it. John Reardon, who is intimately familiar with Patek Philippe, voted it as one of ‘The 6 Most Undervalued Vintage Patek Philippe Models’. It is art-deco infused, a bit Breguet, a mechanically exceptional perpetual calendar, and under 50K. It’s almost like this was designed to sell terribly and be special only for posterity. The 5040 was succeeded in 2012 by the 5940G, but that more squared case lost some of the elongated pebble-like essence that makes the 5040 magical. Its fonts became more seriffed and fussy. The 5040 stands alone in time. If you love the Tortue case, this really does ask for consideration at current market values today. Not better nor worse than a 3940, just lesser known, more alternative, and a little more daring. Just like Don Swayze’s 1993 sci-fi thriller hit: Beach Babes from Beyond.

This example has a pretty solid back hallmark, a latter series. Earlier series still had hallmarks on the case side. It looks great, probably lightly polished but nothing remotely bad. It comes with its birth certificate and clasp, plus some other odds and ends, from a well-regarded Dutch retailer.