The world time flyback chronograph is a highly sought-after Patek Philippe World Time Chronograph 5935 icon, and now the Ref. 5935 interprets the desirable combination in steel for the first time, with a “carbon” pattern dial in rose gilt opaline that confers it a bold, modern and distinctive appearance. It sports several vintage Patek Philippe details like applied baton-type hour markers and dauphine hands in charcoal gray white gold. In the interest of legibility, these details all have white luminescent coating, and are displayed atop a large 41 mm case that sits 12.75mm high. This 41mm, highly complicated piece combines two vaunted and storied complications of Patek Philippe. The maison is loved for its chronographs, and you might remember the recent Patek Philippe 5470P 1/10th of a Second Monopusher Chronograph, which showcased Patek Philippe’s prowess with creating elegant and highly precise chronographs. The 41mm measurement is a slight upscale too from previous, precious metal versions, which measured 39.5mm across.
Patek Philippe’s famed World Time watches trace their lineage back to the Ref. 515 in red gold, which was produced by Patek Philippe in collaboration with independent watchmaker Louis Cottier in 1937. This was the brand’s first world time wristwatch. The rapid advancement of telecommunications and long-distance travel technology during that era was the impetus for Cottier and Patek Philippe to invent world time watches. The 515 paved the way for other historic Patek Philippe world time models like the 96HU and 542HU, leading up to the brand’s recent launches like the 5231G-001 in white gold with enamel dial, the 5230P-001 in platinum with blue dial and the 7130R-014 in rose gold with green dial, which were unveiled earlier this year.
HU stands for “Heure Universelle” and means “World Time”, initials that the brand new 5935A-001’s movement also bears. The caliber named the CH 28‑520 HU was debuted in the 5930 in 2016, which was the first Patek Philippe timepiece that combines world time and chronograph complications. The white gold 5930 had a blue dial with a circular hand-crafted guilloché pattern.At 34.5mm in diameter and 7.97mm in height, the Caliber CH 28‑520 beats at 4Hz. It consists 343 parts including a Gyromax balance and 21K gold rotor, and stores around 50 to 55 hours of reserve power.
The Ref. 5935 has a flyback chronograph with a 30-minute counter finished with fine concentric rings, displays 24 time zones, displays local time on the main hands, and a running dark and light disc indicates day and night hours in the corresponding cities at all times. A vertical disk clutch ensures minimal wear, and enables the central chronograph hand to display the running seconds. The pusher at the 10 o’clock position sets the local city and time (advancing the hour hand by one-hour increments with the 24-hour and cities rings moving counter-clockwise to readjust accordingly), a mechanism that was patented in 1999. The pusher at two starts and stops the chronograph, and the pusher at four resets the chronograph via its flyback function. Push in its crown to wind the watch, and pull it out to set the time. Complicated, but not overly so.
The Patek Philippe 5935A-001 World Time Flyback Chronograph comes with two hand-stitched calfskin straps – beige calfskin with nubuck finish, and a finely grained taupe calfskin.