Patek Philippe Nautilus Ref. 3700/1A 'Jumbo'

A porthole drawn in a restaurant

In a 2009 interview, Gerald Genta described the moment the Nautilus was born. He was dining alone at the Basel watch fair in the mid-1970s while a group of Patek Philippe people ate in another corner of the room. 'I told the head waiter, "Bring me a piece of paper and a pencil, I want to design something." And I designed the Nautilus while observing the people from Patek eating! It was a sketch that I completed in five minutes.' He then built the prototype in his own studio.

The shape came from the portholes of transatlantic liners: a wide, rounded-octagonal bezel held by two lateral 'ears' that recall the hinges of a watertight ship's window, and a bracelet that flowed straight out of the case. The dial, described by one historian as 'charcoal with a slight hint of blue,' was embossed with horizontal ribs, with applied white gold batons and tritium-filled hands.

Genta had already designed the Royal Oak in 1972. The two watches even shared a movement: the Nautilus used Patek's caliber 28-255 C, built on the Jaeger-LeCoultre caliber 920 and finished by Patek, the same ultra-thin automatic base found in early Royal Oaks. By one auction catalogue's account, of all his designs the Nautilus was the one Genta seems to have regarded as his most timeless.

A steel bet in the middle of the quartz crisis

The Nautilus arrived while Swiss watchmaking was reeling from cheap battery-powered quartz watches. Fashion favored ultra-thin gold quartz watches on gold bracelets. Into that world Patek Philippe, a house known for slim gold dress watches and complications, released a large, steel, automatic sports watch, which one auction specialist summed up as an idea that 'favored design, finishing, and wearability over the mere presence of precious metal.'

The price was the provocation. At launch the steel Nautilus retailed for $3,100, close to a gold Patek mechanical wristwatch at just under $4,000 and more than three times a steel Rolex Daytona at just under $1,000. In France it cost about 15,000 francs. Patek's own advertising leaned into the paradox: 'One of the world's costliest watches is made in stainless steel,' and it worked 'as well with a wet suit as with a dinner suit.'

Demand was slow. Philippe Stern, then running the company, later called it 'modest.' One history describes the reaction as 'closer to bewilderment than enthusiasm': retailers did not want it and the press barely covered it. The steel in question was a nickel-chromium-molybdenum alloy, the same family of armor steel used in Second World War tanks, chosen for corrosion resistance and strength.

How to read a Jumbo

The case was a near-monobloc design: the case middle and back formed a single piece, and the movement went in from the dial side under the bezel. That construction, at only about 7.5 to 7.6 mm thick, still gave a 120-meter water rating. Measurements vary by convention: sources quote 40 mm across the bezel, 42 mm across the ears, or simply 42 mm. The movement has 36 jewels, beats at 19,800 vibrations per hour and has about 40 hours of reserve.

Collectors split the reference into two series. The 3700/1 had a wide, straight bracelet and baton minute markers; the 3700/11 brought a slimmer, tapered bracelet and dot minute markers after Patek moved Nautilus case production in-house at Ateliers Reunis. Sources disagree on the changeover: one auction catalogue gives about 1981, a collector history gives 1982. A detail many miss: Nautilus dials of this era carry a small 'sigma' mark on each side of 'SWISS' below six o'clock, the sign of the gold-promotion association required on Swiss dials with gold markers from 1971 to 1995, because the batons on this steel watch were white gold.

Steel was the main metal, but not the only one. Yellow gold arrived from 1977, a steel-and-gold version in 1980, and a handful of white gold and platinum pieces were made. Numbers for those rarities conflict: one history believes fewer than 10 were made in each precious metal, another counts about 11 white gold examples, another estimates about 65, and one auction catalogue counts 13 white gold examples known to the market. For platinum, sources variously report one, two or three; the catalogue for the third notes that all known platinum cases fall within a few case numbers of each other.

How many were made

Patek Philippe has never published production figures, and the estimates in print do not agree. One collector history estimates about 2,000 to 2,500 Jumbos in total across both generations, 70 to 75 percent of them first-generation watches. Another gives far higher numbers: about 3,500 steel 3700/1A watches from 1976 to 1982 and about 1,300 steel 3700/11A watches from 1982 to 1990, plus some 900 steel-and-gold and 1,500 yellow gold pieces. This page reports both rather than choosing.

What is not in dispute is the ending. The smaller ref. 3800 of 1981 drew buyers away, and the Jumbo was discontinued in 1990. That same year a young Thierry Stern, now the company's president, chose a two-tone Nautilus for his 20th birthday; one history says it was a midsize ref. 3800, another that his first Patek was a two-tone 3700/11 Jumbo. The large time-only Nautilus did not return until the white gold ref. 3711/1G of 2004 and the steel 5711/1A of 2006.

From hard sell to foundation stone

By one account, steel 3700s were already selling for more than the retail price of a new 5711 as early as 2006. The rare metals set the records. A platinum Jumbo sold for 783,750 Swiss francs at auction in 2013, and a 1978 'albino' white-dial steel example brought 250,000 Swiss francs in 2015. A 1978 platinum 3700/1 retailed by a Swiss jeweler, owned by two people since new, later sold in Geneva for 2,540,500 Swiss francs against a 1 to 2 million franc estimate. A 1978 white gold example made as a gift from the Sultan of Oman, with his crowned khanjar emblem on the dial, sold in Hong Kong for HK$9,144,000.

In June 2026, during the Nautilus's 50th-anniversary year, two Jumbos sold at auction in New York. A 1986 steel 3700/11 double-signed by Tiffany & Co., one of only four steel examples with that signature known, brought $355,600 against a $300,000 to $600,000 estimate. A 1982 yellow gold 3700/11, unpolished and never opened by a watchmaker according to the catalogue, sold for $228,600, well over its $80,000 to $160,000 estimate. Its certificate even carries a typo, giving the movement number as 1'310'255 rather than the 1'310'256 stamped on the movement.

For an ordinary steel example, one market tracker put typical pre-owned value at $126,805 at the end of September 2026. Fifty years on, the watch Patek could hardly sell is the one every later Nautilus is measured against.

The numbers

Reference

3700/1A (3700/1, 1976 to about 1981-82) and 3700/11A (to 1990); gold 3700/1J and 3700/11J; steel-and-gold 3700/1AJ and 3700/11AJ

Caliber

28-255 C automatic (Jaeger-LeCoultre 920 base): 28 mm, 3.05 mm thick, 36 jewels, 19,800 vph, about 40 hours

Case

Stainless steel, near-monobloc, movement loaded from the dial side; about 42 mm (40 mm across the bezel); 7.5-7.6 mm thick

Water resistance

120 meters

Production years

1976 to 1990

Production numbers

Not published; estimates range from about 2,000-2,500 total to about 4,800 steel alone

Retail price

$3,100 at launch (1976); about 15,000 French francs

Timeline

1. 1972

   Gerald Genta's Royal Oak for another Swiss maker launches the luxury steel sports watch.

2. 1976

   Patek Philippe presents the Nautilus ref. 3700 at the Basel fair, at a $3,100 retail price.

3. 1977

   First watches leave the factory, by one account; a yellow gold version is offered.

4. 1978

   A white gold Jumbo is made as a gift from the Sultan of Oman, and a platinum example and a white-dial 'albino' steel example are produced.

5. 1980

   A steel-and-gold version is introduced.

6. 1981

   The smaller Nautilus ref. 3800 arrives; around this time the 3700/11 with a tapered bracelet replaces the 3700/1 (one account says 1982).

7. 1986

   A steel 3700/11 double-signed by Tiffany & Co. is made and sold on January 24, one of four such steel examples now known.

8. 1990

   The Jumbo is discontinued; Thierry Stern gets a two-tone Nautilus for his 20th birthday.

9. 2004

   The white gold ref. 3711/1G revives the large time-only Nautilus.

10. 2006

    The steel 5711/1A succeeds the Jumbo for the Nautilus's 30th anniversary; vintage 3700s already sell above its retail price.

11. 2009

    Genta describes sketching the Nautilus in five minutes at a Basel restaurant.

12. 2013

    A platinum Jumbo sells at auction for 783,750 Swiss francs.

13. 2015

    The 1978 white-dial 'albino' steel Jumbo sells for 250,000 Swiss francs.

14. Jun 2026

    A Tiffany-signed steel 3700/11 sells for $355,600 and a yellow gold 3700/11 for $228,600 at auction in New York.

The world in 1976

• Apr 1, 1976

  Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak found the Apple Computer Company in California.

• May 24, 1976

  Concorde service to Washington, D.C., begins, and the 'Judgment of Paris' wine tasting is held.

• Jun 16, 1976

  The Soweto uprising begins in South Africa.

• Jul 4, 1976

  Israeli commandos free hostages at Entebbe Airport in Uganda.

• Jul 17, 1976

  The Summer Olympics open in Montreal.

• Jul 20, 1976

  The Viking 1 lander touches down on Mars.

• Sep 9, 1976

  Mao Zedong dies in Beijing.

• Nov 2, 1976

  Jimmy Carter is elected president of the United States.

Price record

This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.

By reference price, Patek Philippe Nautilus Ref. 3700/1A 'Jumbo' is number 26 of 100 in the watches entries of the FLOAT 100. 54 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (22 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The Nautilus and early Royal Oaks, both designed by Gerald Genta, ran on the same Jaeger-LeCoultre-based automatic movement.
• In 1976 a steel Nautilus cost more than three times a steel Rolex Daytona.
• The tiny 'sigma' marks beside 'SWISS' on a Jumbo dial advertise a gold-promotion association, because the hour batons on this steel watch are white gold.
• Early Nautilus cases were made from a nickel-chromium-molybdenum steel alloy of the kind used in Second World War tank armor.
• Thierry Stern, who later retired the 5711, wore a two-tone Nautilus from 1990, a 20th-birthday choice; accounts differ on whether it was a Jumbo or the smaller 3800.
• One 1982 gold Jumbo sold in 2026 has a certificate whose movement number is off by exactly one digit from the movement itself.
• The Jumbo was delivered in a presentation box made of cork and steel, far from Patek's usual codes.