Patek Philippe Ref. 1518 (steel)

A wartime first

In 1941, with Europe at war and the United States about to join it, Patek Philippe introduced two wristwatches that set its course for the next eight decades. The ref. 1526 was its first serially made perpetual calendar. The ref. 1518 was the first perpetual calendar chronograph wristwatch any watchmaker produced in series. Since 1932 the company had been owned by the brothers Charles and Jean Stern, whose family had made dials, and the 1518 was launched under their ownership.

The 1518 set the layout that perpetual calendar chronographs still follow. The day and month sit in two windows below 12 o'clock. A subdial at 9 shows running seconds and one at 3 counts chronograph minutes. The subdial at 6 combines the date with a moon phase shown through a half-moon opening. A tachymeter scale runs around the outer edge, along with a track marked in fifths of a second. Applied Arabic numerals mark the other hours, with dots replacing the 5 and 7 to leave room for the lower subdial.

Inside is the caliber 13-130 Q. It starts from a Valjoux chronograph movement (one source identifies it as the Valjoux 23) and adds a perpetual calendar module from Victorin Piguet, one of the few firms still building traditional complications at the time. It was finished to a standard unusual for a wristwatch of the period. The same caliber later powered the 1518's successor, the ref. 2499, introduced in 1950, and the two references overlapped for about four years. According to one writer, no other manufacturer even attempted a perpetual calendar chronograph for roughly another half century.

Patek made 281 examples of the 1518. Most were yellow gold. One history counts about 55 in pink gold, while another puts pink gold at roughly 20 percent of the run. About 15 examples are known of the so-called 'pink-on-pink,' a pink gold case paired with a matching salmon dial. Owners of 1518s included King Farouk of Egypt, the King of Jordan and the American collector Henry Graves.

Why plain steel became the prize

In the 1940s Patek reserved its complicated watches almost entirely for precious metal. A steel 1518 is a paradox: the brand's most advanced complication in its most utilitarian case metal. Only four are known. One account says steel versions were made only on request. Another notes that in its day the steel 1518 was probably the most expensive steel Patek Philippe in the catalog.

Steel did not command a premium then. A 1944 Patek catalog prices the steel 1518 CHF 535 below the gold version, a difference of about 20 percent, and one account gives its original retail price as $2,265. Collectors prize it now for exactly that reason: a complicated watch in a simple metal is very rare.

The steel watches are not just gold watches in another alloy. A different supplier made their cases, which have a slightly more angular lug profile. Sources disagree on the supplier's name. One says the steel cases came from Georges Croisier, later known as Genevor, and the gold cases from Vichet. Another credits Genevor SA with the three matching steel cases, and a third credits Croisier with 1518 cases in general. Three of the steel cases carry sequential numbers, 508'473-1, 508'474-2 and 508'475-3, and each bezel is engraved with the last three digits of its case number. According to the collector and author John Goldberger, four cases were ordered from that supplier and the fourth was never used. The fourth known steel watch is in a chunkier case made by Wenger and numbered 633'556-1, with wider, solid lugs and blued steel hands.

There may be more. Patek's books are said to record a two-tone 1518 in steel and pink gold, and one history says three such watches were made in 1942, but no one in the modern market has examined one closely. A photograph of King Michael I of Romania wearing a 1518 was once taken as a sign that he owned one. According to one history, a later color photograph shows his watch to be all gold.

From Budapest to the auction record

Case 508'473-1 is marked '1' inside its caseback and is widely accepted as the first steel 1518. It was made in 1943, and according to Patek's archive records it was sold on February 22, 1944, at a retailer in Budapest. The second steel watch went to the same retailer on the same day. Less than a month later, on March 19, 1944, German forces occupied Hungary. The third steel watch was sold in 1946.

The market found the third watch first. In the early 1980s it sat unsold on 47th Street, New York's diamond district, at $4,500, while a yellow gold 1518 then cost $7,500. On November 12, 1989, it became the first steel 1518 sold in public, at auction in Monaco, for 1.6 million French francs, or about $281,600. In 1995 it failed to meet its reserve at auction and was then bought privately for $531,869.

The first watch surfaced around 1994 at a trade show in Germany, where it was bought from a Hungarian woman for the equivalent of about $200,000. It passed through the Milan dealer Davide Parmegiani, the one person who has handled and sold all four steel 1518s, to an Italian collector. By 2007 it belonged to the collector Alfredo Paramico, who has said he paid 2.2 million euros, and it later went privately to an Australian owner. The Wenger-cased watch was found in 2000, when its original owner's family in Turkey sent it to Geneva for service. That October it sold at auction for CHF 1,433,500, a little over $1 million. The second watch belonged to a Hungarian family who were offered a few thousand dollars, then $50,000. They grew suspicious and sought expert help, and in November 2004 the watch sold for 1.3 million euros, about $1.68 million.

On November 12, 2016, the first watch sold at auction in Geneva for CHF 11,002,000 with fees (CHF 9.6 million at the hammer). It was then the most expensive wristwatch ever sold at auction and the first to pass the eight-figure mark. The dollar equivalent was reported as $10.7 million at the time, and a later account gives about $11.1 million. Its buyer consigned it again in 2025. On November 8, 2025, in Geneva, it sold for CHF 12 million at the hammer, or CHF 14.2 million (about $17.6 million) with fees. Bidding took ten minutes among five bidders, three in the room and two on the phone, and online bidding was not allowed for the lot. The winner bid by phone.

That result is the highest ever paid for a vintage Patek Philippe wristwatch. It did not set the overall wristwatch record. A modern steel Patek Grandmaster Chime sold for charity in 2019 at CHF 31 million, and a 'Paul Newman' Rolex Daytona sold for $17.75 million in 2017. In late 2025 the third steel watch was also on the market, offered privately at a price reported as more than $20 million.

How to read a 1518

Steel or gold, a 1518 measures 35 mm across. That is small by modern standards, and the watch sits light and quiet on the wrist. The case has thin straight lugs, a thin, slightly concave bezel, a large winding crown and rectangular chronograph pushers. The calendar and moon phase displays are what set a 1518 apart from a simpler chronograph.

On the steel watches, specialists check the case numbers against the three digits engraved on each bezel, and the movement numbers engraved on the underside of the calendar discs. The first steel watch carries case number 508'473 and movement number 863'193. Its dial markings are enamel set into engraved recesses. Its Patek logo below 12 is slightly fainter than the other markings, as on the second and third steel watches, and one account suggests the logos may have been faint from the start and worn further by cleaning.

For scale, one 2016 account placed yellow gold 1518s at roughly $250,000 to $500,000 and pink gold examples between $450,000 and $1.5 million. Before the 2025 Geneva sale, the steel watch carried an estimate of CHF 8 million to 16 million. One account put that at about ten times the value of a good yellow gold example.

The template for everything after

The 1518 began a line that runs through the ref. 2499 (made from 1950 to 1985), the 3970, the 5970 and today's perpetual calendar chronographs. Even watches that rearrange the display, with retrograde hands or windows in a row, are reacting to the layout the 1518 set in 1941.

The steel watches seldom move. One has belonged to the Italian collector Sandro Fratini for decades, and the Wenger-cased watch has long been with a private collector in northern Italy. All four are well documented, and because they so rarely change hands, every public appearance makes news. By one report, Patek Philippe's own museum in Geneva does not own a steel 1518.

The numbers

Reference

1518

Caliber

13-130 Q, hand-wound: Valjoux chronograph base with a Victorin Piguet perpetual calendar module

Functions

Chronograph, perpetual calendar (day, date, month), moon phase

Case

35 mm; yellow gold, pink gold, and four known in steel

Production years

1941 to about 1954

Total made

281

Steel case numbers

508'473-1, 508'474-2, 508'475-3 and 633'556-1

Timeline

1. 1932

   The brothers Charles and Jean Stern take over Patek Philippe.

2. 1941

   Patek Philippe introduces the ref. 1518, the first serially produced perpetual calendar chronograph wristwatch, alongside the perpetual calendar ref. 1526.

3. 1943

   Steel case 508'473-1, the first of the steel 1518s, is made.

4. Feb 22, 1944

   The first steel 1518 is sold at a retailer in Budapest, and the second steel example goes to the same retailer the same day.

5. 1946

   The third steel 1518, case 508'475-3, is sold.

6. 1950

   The successor ref. 2499 appears, and the two references overlap for about four years.

7. 1954

   Production of the 1518 ends after 281 watches.

8. Nov 12, 1989

   The third steel 1518 becomes the first sold in public, at auction in Monaco, for 1.6 million French francs.

9. 1994

   Around this year the first steel 1518 surfaces at a trade show in Germany.

10. Oct 21, 1995

    The third steel 1518 fails to meet its reserve at auction and is then bought privately for $531,869.

11. Oct 15, 2000

    The Wenger-cased steel 1518, found in Turkey, sells at auction for CHF 1,433,500.

12. Nov 2004

    The second steel 1518, from a Hungarian family, sells for 1.3 million euros.

13. 2007

    By this year the collector Alfredo Paramico owns the first steel 1518.

14. Nov 12, 2016

    The first steel 1518 sells at auction in Geneva for CHF 11,002,000, at the time the highest auction price for any wristwatch.

15. Nov 8, 2025

    The same watch sells at auction in Geneva for CHF 14.2 million with fees, about $17.6 million, a record for a vintage Patek Philippe wristwatch.

The world in 1941

• Mar 11, 1941

  President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act, allowing the United States to supply the Allies.

• May 1, 1941

  Orson Welles' Citizen Kane premieres in New York City.

• Jun 22, 1941

  Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.

• Jul 1, 1941

  Commercial television begins in the United States with NBC's station WNBT.

• Dec 7, 1941

  The attack on Pearl Harbor brings the United States into the Second World War.

• Mar 19, 1944

  German forces occupy Hungary, less than a month after two steel 1518s were sold in Budapest.

• Jun 6, 1944

  Allied troops land in Normandy at the start of Operation Overlord.

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 Ref. 1518 (steel) is number 2 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 (27 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• In the early 1980s a steel 1518 sat unsold on New York's 47th Street at $4,500, less than the $7,500 a gold one cost at the time.
• The record-setting steel 1518 was sold new in Budapest on February 22, 1944, and a second steel example went to the same retailer the same day.
• When new, the steel 1518 was the cheaper version: a 1944 price list shows it CHF 535 below gold.
• A Hungarian family that owned the second steel 1518 became suspicious when an offer for it jumped from a few thousand dollars to $50,000. With expert help, the watch later sold for 1.3 million euros.
• The fourth steel 1518 came to light in 2000 when its owner's family in Turkey sent it to Geneva for service. It was handed over at Patek's Geneva salon in exchange for a certified check.
• Online bidding was not allowed for the steel 1518 in November 2025, and it still took ten minutes to sell.
• One dealer, Davide Parmegiani, has handled and sold all four known steel 1518s.