Introducing The Patek Philippe Aquanaut 5168G With Khaki Green Dial
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A precious metal sports watch gets a rugged new look.
Stephen Pulvirent
Well, this one's gonna be a fan favorite. Patek Philippe is updating the Aquanaut with a new dial and strap combination – this time in rugged shades of green. They're calling the color "khaki green," but I think you could easily call it drab green, army green, or even olive green and be pretty spot on. Interestingly, Patek chose the 5168 as the canvas for this new hue instead of the more obvious 5167. The latter is what we think of as the "standard" Aquanaut, with the traditional 40mm case size, while the 5168 is noticeably larger at 42.2mm across. Additionally, the 5168G is made of solid white gold instead of steel (as noted by the G at the end of the reference number), meaning that this tough-looking sports watch is actually made of a precious metal. 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.
Initial Thoughts
If you're not a Patek collector (or at least friends with a few...or a lot), you're probably reading this thinking "A green Aquanaut? Seriously?" That's fair, this is technically just a dial and strap update to an existing reference, which is to say that it's normally not something we'd think of as super news-worthy. However, the Aquanaut is an extremely in-demand watch, with years-long waitlists for some popular models, and the green-dialed Aquanaut is something of a legend amongst those in the know. The fact that Patek is bringing it back is huge news.
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. They very rarely change hands and the last one I could find in a public auction sold back in 2015 at Sotheby's, fetching CHF 52,500. Today one of these would almost certainly be a six-figure watch at auction.
This khaki green 5167A sold for CHF 52,500 at Sotheby's in 2015.
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.
So yeah, a new green Aquanaut that customers might actually be able to find and buy for themselves? A big deal indeed.
Brand: Patek Philippe
Reference Number: 5168G-010
Case Material: White gold
Dial Color: Khaki green
Indexes: Arabic numerals
Lume: Yes, on hands and hour markers
Strap/Bracelet: Green "Tropical" rubber strap with folding clasp
Caliber: 324 S C
Winding: Automatic with 21k gold central rotor
Frequency: 4 Hz (28,800 vph)
Patek Philippe Seal
Additional Details: Gyromax balance and Spiromax balance spring
Availability: Later in 2019
Limited Edition: No
For more click here.
Patek-philippe
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