Patek Philippe Nautilus Ref. 5711/1A

A sketch, a porthole and a steel watch priced like gold

The story starts in 1976, with the Nautilus ref. 3700/1A. It was designed by Gerald Genta, who had already drawn the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak in 1972, and who, by one account, sketched the Nautilus in five minutes while dining a few meters from a table of Patek Philippe executives. The shape came from the portholes of ocean liners: a rounded octagonal bezel held by two hinge-like 'ears' on the sides of the case, with a bracelet that flowed straight out of the case instead of hanging from lugs.

It was a strange watch for a company known for thin gold dress pieces. Philippe Stern, then president, later described demand at launch as 'modest.' Retailers did not want to tie up stock in it and much of the press ignored it. Patek's own advertising leaned into the paradox, telling readers that 'one of the world's costliest watches is made of steel' and that it worked 'as well with a wet suit as with a dinner suit.'

The original 'Jumbo' ran until 1990. A smaller ref. 3800 followed in 1981 and drew sales away from it, and after a long gap the large time-only Nautilus came back in 2004 as the ref. 3711/1G, made only in white gold with the caliber 315 SC movement and a sapphire caseback. It lasted two years and served, in hindsight, as a rehearsal for the watch on this page.

2006: a 30th-birthday reissue nobody fussed over

For the Nautilus's 30th anniversary in 2006, Patek Philippe discontinued every existing Nautilus and relaunched the line around four steel models: the time-and-date 5711/1A, the moon phase and power reserve 5712/1A, the 5980/1A chronograph and the mid-size 5800/1A. The 5711 kept the 3700's ribbed blue-black dial and porthole case but softened the ears, moved to a three-part case with a sapphire caseback, added a central seconds hand and enlarged the hands and markers slightly. It measures about 40 mm across and 8.3 mm thick, against the 3700's 7.5 to 7.6 mm.

Patek itself was modest about it. Its 2006 press release observed that 'thirty years is not a venerable age for a Patek Philippe collection,' pointing out that the Calatrava line was 70 years old. A former Patek USA staffer who handled distribution at the time recalled that retailers 'might get one or two pieces, but it wasn't an easy sell,' and some collectors thought the moon phase 5712 was the more interesting launch.

Its price was already a statement for a steel watch: $17,000 at release by one account, $17,200 by another. Within a short time it was a watch you waited for rather than bought off a shelf, and it has appeared at auction since 2008, consistently selling above its retail price.

From waiting list to phenomenon

Demand built slowly and then all at once. One former Patek insider pointed to 2013 as the year auction prices began to run well past retail and waiting lists for the Nautilus became the norm; by 2019, reports of 8- to 10-year waits were common. One watch magazine wrote that demand was already strong by the Nautilus's 40th birthday in 2016 and that the waiting list then stretched to nearly a decade, and the watch began turning up on the wrists of celebrities known by one name.

During the pandemic the market went vertical. By early 2021, with the retail price around CHF 28,000, secondhand examples had passed CHF 100,000. One collector's guide put a standard blue-dial example at more than $160,000 toward the end of 2021, settling to about $130,000 a year later, still roughly four times its original retail price. A buyer could pay $200,000 for a steel, time-only watch that retailed for a tenth of that.

The maker earned little from the frenzy. It kept selling the watch to retailers at a fixed price, while the markup went to the clients who resold and the intermediaries between them.

Retired at the top

In early 2021 the 5711/1A was discontinued. One account dates the decision to January 2021; another says it surfaced as a line on a discontinuation list shared with retailers in February, with no announcement. Patek president Thierry Stern explained it in interviews: he did not 'want a single model to suddenly make up 50% or more of our collection and dominate Patek's image,' wanted no more than a third of the company's watches in steel, and said rarity was one of the keys to making watches retain their value. Some people already on waiting lists, he warned, 'will go away empty-handed.'

Stern promised a farewell. In April 2021 Patek replaced the blue dial with an olive green one, ref. 5711/1A-014, at a US retail price of $34,893, alongside a version with 32 baguette diamonds on the bezel. In July 2021 a factory-sealed green example sold at auction in Monaco for 416,000 euros including premium, against a 50,000 to 150,000 euro estimate.

Then came the last act. In December 2021 Patek released 170 examples of a 5711/1A-018 with a Tiffany Blue dial co-signed by Tiffany & Co., a gift from Stern to mark LVMH's purchase of the jeweler and the two companies' 170-year relationship, each retailing for around $52,000. The first was auctioned in New York on December 11, 2021, for the benefit of The Nature Conservancy. The hammer fell at $5,350,000, or $6,503,000 with premium, more than 120 times its retail price.

The sale had a coda. The winning online bidder never completed the purchase. About six weeks later the watch went instead to Zach Lu, a California collector who had been an underbidder in the room, for his final bid plus commission, about $6.2 million; the charity still received the full original price.

In 2022 the time-only Nautilus returned as the ref. 5811/1G, 1 mm larger and only in white gold, at a list price of $69,785.

How to read a 5711/1A

Collectors divide the steel 5711 by movement. The first watches of 2006 and early 2007 used the caliber 315 SC, a 3 Hz movement inherited from the white gold 3711; about 1,000 are believed to exist, identified by the movement inside. From 2007 the 324 SC took over, running at 4 Hz with a Gyromax balance and Spiromax hairspring. Watches from before 2009 carry the Geneva Seal on the movement; from 2009 Patek used its own Patek Philippe Seal, which shows as a double P. In 2019 the 26-330 S C arrived and, for the first time, the seconds hand stopped when the crown was pulled to set the time.

Dial and bracelet details matter more to most buyers. Around 2008-2009 some dials had wider ribs, giving 16 horizontal lines instead of 18; in 2018 the Patek Philippe signature moved onto a raised 'cartouche' instead of sitting among the ribs. Until about 2011 the bracelet's end links were fixed with screws, after about 2012 with pin sleeves. A white-dial steel variant, 5711/1A-011, was added in 2012.

The steel blue-dial watch was not a limited edition. It ran for 15 years, and the former Patek USA staffer put it simply in one collector's guide: 'A 5711 is a 5711.' Its scarcity in the market came from demand and waiting lists, not from small production. The rare 5711s are the precious-metal and gem-set ones: the platinum 5711/1P made quietly for top clients, a 700-piece platinum 40th-anniversary edition of 2016, and gem-set platinum references made in very small numbers.

After the peak

Prices came down from the 2021 and 2022 highs and, by one 2026 account, have since stabilized or ticked up, with all bracelet models still selling for several multiples of their original retail price. A first-series example with the 315 SC movement, sold new in December 2006, brought $176,400 in an online sale based in Dubai in March 2022.

Provenance still moves the needle. A 2018 example originally sold to Eric Clapton, with its certificate of origin and full packaging, was estimated at $70,000 to $140,000 and sold for $266,700 at auction in New York in June 2026, during the Nautilus's 50th-anniversary year. One market tracker estimated the typical pre-owned value of a steel 5711/1A at $123,675 at the end of September 2026.

The numbers

Reference

5711/1A-010 (formerly 5711/1A-001); steel, blue dial

Related steel references

5711/1A-011 white dial (2012-2020); 5711/1A-014 olive green (2021); 5711/1A-018 Tiffany Blue, 170 pieces (2021)

Calibers

315 SC (2006-2007, 3 Hz); 324 SC (2007-2019, 4 Hz, 29 jewels); 26-330 S C (2019-2021, with stop-seconds)

Caliber 26-330 S C

27 mm wide, 3.32 mm thick, 207 parts, 30 jewels, 35-45 hours power reserve, 21K gold central rotor (maker's specification)

Case

Stainless steel, three-part with sapphire caseback; about 40 mm across the bezel, 42.5-43 mm across the ears; 8.3 mm thick

Water resistance

120 meters

Production years

2006 to 2021

Production numbers

Not disclosed; about 1,000 first-series (315 SC) watches are believed to exist

Retail price

$17,000 or $17,200 at launch (2006); about CHF 28,000 by early 2021; olive green successor $34,893 (2021)

Timeline

1. 1972

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

2. 1976

   Patek Philippe presents the Nautilus ref. 3700, designed by Genta.

3. 1981

   The mid-size Nautilus ref. 3800 is introduced.

4. 1990

   The original 'Jumbo' ref. 3700 is discontinued.

5. 2004

   The ref. 3711/1G brings back a time-only Jumbo, in white gold only.

6. 2006

   For the Nautilus's 30th anniversary, Patek relaunches the line; the steel 5711/1A debuts with the caliber 315 SC.

7. 2007

   The caliber 324 SC replaces the 315 SC.

8. 2009

   Patek moves from the Geneva Seal to its own Patek Philippe Seal.

9. 2012

   A white-dial steel version, 5711/1A-011, is added.

10. 2016

    A 700-piece platinum 5711 marks the Nautilus's 40th anniversary.

11. 2018

    The signature on the blue dial moves onto a raised cartouche.

12. 2019

    The caliber 26-330 S C, with stop-seconds, replaces the 324 SC.

13. Feb 2021

    Thierry Stern confirms the 5711 is ending and promises a farewell series (one account dates the discontinuation to January).

14. Apr 2021

    The olive green 5711/1A-014 replaces the blue dial.

15. Jul 21, 2021

    A sealed green 5711 sells at auction in Monaco for 416,000 euros.

16. Dec 11, 2021

    The first Tiffany Blue 5711/1A-018 draws a winning bid of $6,503,000 with premium at auction in New York for charity; that buyer never completes the purchase.

17. 2022

    The white gold Nautilus 5811/1G succeeds the 5711 as the time-only Jumbo.

18. Jun 2026

    Eric Clapton's 2018 5711/1A-010 sells at auction in New York for $266,700.

The world in 2006

• Jan 19, 2006

  NASA launches New Horizons, the first probe sent to Pluto.

• Feb 10, 2006

  The Winter Olympics open in Turin, Italy.

• Mar 21, 2006

  Twitter is launched.

• Jul 9, 2006

  Italy beats France in the World Cup final in Germany.

• Aug 24, 2006

  The International Astronomical Union reclassifies Pluto as a dwarf planet.

• Nov 2, 2006

  Jackson Pollock's No. 5, 1948 becomes the most expensive painting after a $140 million private sale.

• Nov 19, 2006

  Nintendo releases the Wii, eight days after Sony's PlayStation 3.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Patek Philippe Nautilus Ref. 5711/1A is number 28 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 (21 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Patek's own 2006 press release for the new Nautilus noted that 'thirty years is not a venerable age for a Patek Philippe collection.'
• Gerald Genta reportedly sketched the original Nautilus in five minutes while dining near a table of Patek executives; the original drawing later sold for more than $720,000.
• Until 2019 the 5711's seconds hand kept running while the time was set; the last movement, the 26-330 S C, finally added stop-seconds.
• Thierry Stern chose a two-tone Nautilus ref. 3800 for his 20th birthday in 1990, decades before he retired the 5711.
• The $6.5 million Tiffany 5711 never went to the bidder who won it: the sale fell through and an underbidder who had stepped out for a cigarette ended up with the watch.
• The number 170 in the Tiffany edition was chosen to match the 170-year relationship between Patek Philippe and Tiffany & Co.
• Vintage steel Nautilus 3700s were already selling for more than a new 5711's retail price as early as 2006.