Patek Philippe Ref. 2499

The sequel to a groundbreaking watch

The 2499 exists because of the watch before it. In 1941 Patek Philippe introduced the ref. 1518, the first wristwatch powered by a serially produced perpetual calendar chronograph movement: a stopwatch, a calendar that knows the length of every month and accounts for leap years, and a moon phase display, all on the wrist and in the middle of a world war. Patek made about 281 of them over some 14 years, nearly all in yellow gold.

Even before the 1518 was fully retired, Patek introduced its successor. Sources differ on the exact start, with some giving 1950 and others 1951, but they agree on the substance: the new reference kept the 1518's dial design and the same family of movement while moving it into a larger, more contemporary case with stepped, down-turned lugs that one specialist essay describes as inspired by the industrial look of the 1950s. The movement inside is the caliber 13-130, built on a Valjoux ebauche that Patek reworked in-house and had already used in the 1518.

Then Patek kept refining it. Over the 35-year run the company changed the pushers, the dial, the case maker and finally the crystal, producing four nearly identical models that collectors call the first through fourth series. One essay on the reference puts the paradox neatly: Patek made what many regard as the most beautiful complicated wristwatch and still decided it could be improved, again and again, for three decades.

Four series, one silhouette

The first series is the closest to the 1518 and the easiest to confuse with it. It has square chronograph pushers, applied Arabic numerals and a tachymeter scale around the dial. Its earliest cases were made by the casemaker Vichet, with a flat caseback and long, claw-like down-turned lugs; Vichet cases are not seen after 1953. Later first-series watches and nearly all later 2499s used cases by Wenger, slightly larger, with a domed caseback and gentler lugs. One guide estimates about 40 first-series examples in all, mostly yellow gold.

The second series swapped the square pushers for round ones and improved the case to keep out dust and moisture. Dials came with either Arabic numerals or baton markers, and the tachymeter stayed. Dates for this series vary by source, from about 1953 to 1960 in one guide to 1955 to 1964 in another; one specialist essay says production ended around the early 1960s.

The third series, the longest-lived, dropped the tachymeter scale and the Arabic numerals for an open dial with baton markers and outer seconds divisions. Early third-series dials were hard enamel, engraved and filled by hand; that costly technique was abandoned around the start of the 1970s in favor of printed dials, which look flatter. The fourth series, ref. 2499/100, made from about 1978, kept the third-series look but added a flat sapphire crystal, which makes it easy to spot. Its larger date numerals crowded out the '30' on the outer minute track. From 1982, according to one guide, its cases were made by Patek Philippe itself after it acquired the Geneva casemaker Ateliers Reunis.

Collectors judge any example on condition first: the fluting on the lugs, which is sharp when original and soft once polished, the hallmarks, and whether an enamel dial is intact. Retailer signatures on the dial, such as Tiffany, Beyer, Asprey or Gobbi, add another layer of rarity.

Two platinum watches and a rock star

No 2499 was ever cataloged in white gold. Instead, in 1987, more than a year after the last yellow gold example was made, two remaining 2499 movements were finished in platinum cases. Patek never issued a statement about why; one auction catalog suggests they were requested by Philippe Stern as a crowning edition of the reference, and one account says they were meant as centerpieces for the company's museum.

One of the two was offered only once by the company: at a celebrated auction in Geneva in April 1989, marking Patek's 150th anniversary. The company's archive records the sale on April 7, 1989, the Friday before the Sunday auction, and it brought SFr 418,000, about $253,300 at the time. The buyer was a major European collector; the watch changed hands again in the late 1990s and was later acquired by Eric Clapton.

In November 2012 Clapton sold it at auction in Geneva for CHF 3,443,000, reported as about $3.6 million. The other platinum 2499 is held by Patek Philippe. Clapton's name turns up elsewhere in the 2499 story too: a specialist list of the eight identified pink-gold second-series examples records one of them, by its movement number the same watch later known as the 'Gobbi' 2499, as his former property.

From ten a year to auction records

Because so few were made, the 2499 reaches the market slowly, and the most celebrated examples tend to circulate among a small number of serious collections. Pink gold is the dividing line. One essay counts only eight identified pink-gold second-series examples and calls each a 'Mona Lisa' of watch collecting; another report says the Gobbi watch is one of nine. One guide estimates 40 to 50 pink-gold 2499s of all series.

In May 2012 a pink-gold first-series 2499 in the larger Wenger case sold at auction in Geneva for $2,750,760, while a more typical 2499 in the same sale brought $314,000. Its value came from a stack of rarities: first series, pink gold, and a case unlike the three other known pink first-series examples, which were all in the smaller Vichet case.

The top of the market belongs to a collector known publicly only as 'the Nevadian,' an American who began collecting in the mid-1990s and assembled some 400 watches. He bought the pink-gold second-series 2499 retailed by Gobbi of Milan, the only pink-gold second-series example with a retailer's signature on the dial, at auction in Geneva on May 14, 2007, for CHF 2,736,000 with fees. It was made in 1957 and first sold on October 18, 1958. In April 2022, offered in Hong Kong as part of the last of his collection, four telephone bidders fought over it; one jumped the bidding from HK$19 million to HK$30 million in a single bid. It hammered at HK$50 million, HK$60.265 million with premium, about US$7.68 million, the highest price yet paid for a 2499.

The previous record holder, an example retailed by Asprey, had also come from the Nevadian and sold in Geneva in 2018 for about US$4 million. The same 2022 sale included a second-series 2499 described as the only known example with a luminous dial, which brought HK$23.4 million, about US$2.98 million.

The template for every Patek that followed

The 2499 was retired in the mid-1980s and replaced by the ref. 3970, which kept the silhouette, the round pushers and down-turned lugs, but used a new movement based on a heavily modified Lemania 2310, adding leap-year and 24-hour indications. At 36 mm it was smaller than the 2499's 37.5 mm.

Patek has never stopped making perpetual calendar chronographs since, and its modern versions still follow the shape and functions the 2499 set. One specialist writes that the 2499 holds the place in watch collectors' hearts that the Ferrari 250 SWB holds for car enthusiasts: not the first of its kind, nor the last, but the one considered the most beautiful.

The numbers

Reference

2499; fourth series 2499/100

Caliber

13-130, a Valjoux-based manual-wind movement reworked by Patek Philippe, with perpetual calendar, moon phase and chronograph

Case size

37.5 mm (Wenger); early first-series Vichet cases about 36 mm

Case material

18k yellow gold (most), 18k pink gold (an estimated 40 to 50), platinum (2)

Casemakers

Vichet (to 1953), Wenger, then Patek Philippe from 1982 by one account

Production years

1950 or 1951 to 1985 or 1986; platinum pair 1987

Production number

About 349

Timeline

1. 1941

   Patek Philippe introduces the ref. 1518, the first serially produced perpetual calendar chronograph wristwatch and the 2499's predecessor.

2. 1950

   Start of 2499 production as given by some sources; others date the first watches to 1951.

3. 1953

   The last first-series cases by Vichet; Wenger becomes the main casemaker.

4. 1957

   The pink-gold second-series example later known as the 'Gobbi' 2499 is made.

5. Oct 18, 1958

   The Gobbi 2499 is first sold, according to the maker's archive.

6. 1978

   The fourth series, ref. 2499/100, begins, with a sapphire crystal.

7. 1982

   Patek Philippe begins making the cases itself after acquiring the casemaker Ateliers Reunis, by one account.

8. 1985

   End of regular production as given by some sources; one account says the last yellow gold example was cased in 1986. The ref. 3970 follows.

9. 1987

   Two platinum 2499s are completed, the only examples in a white metal.

10. Apr 7, 1989

    One platinum 2499 is sold, recorded by the archive two days before a Geneva anniversary auction, for SFr 418,000.

11. May 14, 2007

    The Nevadian buys the Gobbi 2499 at auction in Geneva for CHF 2,736,000 with fees.

12. May 2012

    A pink-gold first-series 2499 in a Wenger case sells in Geneva for $2,750,760.

13. Nov 12, 2012

    Eric Clapton's platinum 2499/100 sells in Geneva for CHF 3,443,000, about $3.6 million.

14. Nov 2018

    The 'Asprey' 2499, from the Nevadian's collection, sells in Geneva for about US$4 million, then a record.

15. May 2021

    A yellow gold fourth-series 2499 sells in Geneva for CHF 428,400.

16. Apr 2022

    The Gobbi 2499 sells in Hong Kong for HK$60.265 million, about US$7.68 million, the record for the reference.

17. May 2023

    A 1953 pink-gold second-series 2499 sells in Geneva for CHF 3,206,000.

The world in 1951

• Mar 31, 1951

  Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the U.S. Census Bureau.

• Apr 11, 1951

  President Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur of his Far Eastern commands.

• Apr 18, 1951

  The Treaty of Paris is adopted, establishing the European Coal and Steel Community.

• May 3, 1951

  King George VI opens the Festival of Britain in London.

• Sep 8, 1951

  The Treaty of San Francisco is signed, formally ending the Pacific War with Japan.

• Oct 15, 1951

  I Love Lucy airs its first episode in the United States.

• Dec 20, 1951

  Experimental Breeder Reactor I, the world's first experimental nuclear power plant, opens in Idaho.

Daily price data

FLOAT reprices this watch every day from completed sales. Last updated November 12, 2026.

Every grade and recorded sale for this watch

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. 2499 is number 6 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 (28 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Patek made about 349 of these in 35 years, an average of roughly ten a year.
• The fourth series is the only one with a sapphire crystal, and its larger date numerals pushed the '30' off the outer minute track.
• The two platinum 2499s were finished in 1987, more than a year after the last yellow gold one, and the reference was never cataloged in white gold.
• The record-setting Gobbi 2499 cost CHF 2.74 million in 2007 and sold for HK$60.265 million in 2022.
• A third-series 2499 once owned by the voice actor Mel Blanc has been offered at auction.
• Only four third-series 2499s are known with a Beyer retailer signature, and none from the first or second series.