$11,000 for a PATEK PHILIPPE AQUANAUT RUBBER STRAP!!! Luxury Watch World Has Gone Mad?
$11,000 for a PATEK PHILIPPE AQUANAUT RUBBER STRAP!!! Luxury Watch World Has Gone Mad?
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For a while, you could purchase the matching khaki green rubber straps separately from Patek retailers as long as you owned a ref. 5164 or ref. 5167, and it became something of a fad amongst collectors to add these to their standard black-dialed Aquanauts to create sort of mock-khaki watches. Eventually Patek caught wind of what was happening and stopped allowing retailers to sell the green straps to customers who didn't own a genuine khaki green watch. Now even the straps are collectable.
Reputedly made as a tiny run of just three watches, the original Aquanaut with a khaki green dial was a ref. 5167A with a stainless steel case (and Sotheby’s sold one for just over US$50,000 four years ago).
Now the green dial has returned in the “Jumbo” Aquanaut series with the ref. 5168G-010 in 18k white gold. The new Aquanaut is only the second of the 5168 reference, following the first, which had a dark blue dial, released at Baselworld 2017 to celebrate the Aquanaut’s 20th anniversary.
As with all current Patek Philippe watches with applied numerals, the hour markers are solid gold, in white to match the case, and filled with Super-Luminova. Aquanaut Chronograph ref. 5968A in terms its younger, brighter colour palette. Movement-wise, nothing changes; it’s the same movement in the original Aquanaut “Jumbo” and also the smaller Aquanaut ref. 5167A. The ref. 5168G is powered by cal. 324 S C, characterised by a central rotor in 21k gold.
Price and availability
The Aquanaut ref. 5168G-010 is priced at 35,000 Swiss francs, which is about US$35,000. This is only the second version of the ref. 5168G, with the original blue version having been released in 2017 to celebrate the Aquanaut's 20th anniversary. The original green-dialed Aquanaut was in fact a ref. 5167A, which is the 40mm stainless steel version of the Aquanaut. Only a handful were made – many believe the number to be under 10, and some even say fewer than five genuine examples exist – and they were special orders for good clients, produced around 2010/2011. You couldn't just waltz into your local retailer and pick one up out of the case. Patek sold a tiny number of all-khaki 5167A’s many years ago. For some time you could get replacement khaki straps from Patek but not anymore.
Not sure if they are still available for the few owners of those all-khaki 5167As if their straps wear out. auction Either way, not owning a khaki 5167A you will only be able to buy the khaki strap preowned. The khaki strap for the 5168G won't fit the 5167A EBAY Patek policy that Aquanaut straps are cut and fitted to the watch before being allowed out of the store. So there’s zero chance of ordering a few, and having a couple of unopened and uncut ones to sell on for a profit. 5167A - AQUANAUT producer michael watches SELF-WINDING Anthony Ferrer Timepiece Gentleman Archieluxury Archie Luxury Paul Pluta Paul Thorpe Watch Dealer Roman Sharf
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SteveWillDoIt Rolex Richard Mille Omega Patek Philippe Hublot IWC When launched in 1997, the Aquanaut created a sensation. It was young, modern and unexpected. Its case was a rounded octagon, inspired by that of the Nautilus. And it sported a “tropical” strap, made of a new composite material ultra-resistant to wear, salt water and uv radiation. Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime 6300G that cost a cool £1,731,336 on release or a limited edition Richard Mille watch that took a whopping 3,000 hours to make, you name it, Jay-Z's “Gotta Have It”. Unveiled just eight days ago, the first of the Tiffany X Patek Philippe timepieces to go on sale fetched over $6.5million at auction, making it the ninth priciest watch sale since, well, time began. Only 170 of the custom watches have been produced, in line with the 170-year long partnership between Tiffany and Patek Philippe, and as London watch dealer Danny Shahid explained to GQ, the watches are "only going to be offered to people who wouldn't sell them on.” Which, naturally, Hova is unlikely to do, given that at last count his estate was valued at a cool $1.4 billion.
The likelihood is Jay-Z was actually gifted (or at least lent) the timepiece. Not only is he a loyal Patek Philippe customer, there's also the fact that he and Bey are famously fronting Tiffany and Co's campaigns together. In addition, Patek Philippe President Thierry Stern has publicly stated that it would be up to Tiffany and Co - which was recently acquired by French luxury megalith LVMH Last week Patek Phillipe launched the Nautilus Ref. 5711, a Tiffany Blue version produced to celebrate Tiffany & Co.’s 170th anniversary.
