Reader note regarding the title:
When i published the review i wasn't aware that the mods can maybe be done as explained below.
Allured by the beauty of the night sky, man has always looked up and wondered about our place among the stars. In this vast universe filled with billions of stars and galaxies our earth is like a tiny little insignificant particle. Yet the ability of man to reflect upon our existence makes us extraordinary. We are made of the universe we are placed in. In a way the universe has evolved the ability to reflect upon itself. And therefore, our place in the universe – so small and insignificant as it may seem in the context of the vast space and amount of time – is still exceptional.
We have come far in our understanding. From the early archaic conceptions of earth being flat and the center of universe, to Newton explaining us the mechanics of the universe, the observational astronomy of Galileo and Tycho Brahe leading us to understanding the dance of the heavenly bodies.
Theories have developed, our understanding will change and new answers will arise. But the beauty of the sky with all its glittering stars and moonshine lighting up the dark has been captivating us for centuries. That beauty is what this watch is all about. It gives us a view of the nocturnal sky in the northern hemisphere and phases and orbit of the moon. And boy how it does it! The ellipse on the dial frames the portion of the visible sky from the cities located in the latitude of Geneva.
Depicted is a picture of the Milky way over Geneva to show the resemblance on the dial:
Patek Philippe 6102R Celestial Moon Age.
Patek Philippe are known for their complicated watches. They are specially known for the manual wound chronographs, perpetual calendars, minute repeaters, the world timers and astronomical watches. The most iconic of the latter being the Henry Graves Jr. Supercomplication pocket watch from 1933, which sold for an astronomical 23.98M USD on the Sotheby auction in 2014.
The Patek Philippe 6102R – released at Baselworld 2015 – is therefore an heir to a proud lineage. Although its predecessor, the 5102, is relatively new and was produced from 2002 – 2012:
The 5102 was replaced by the 6102P in 2012, which is the platinum version of the 6102R:
The 6102 has a different case construction and the 6102R comes in rosegold, whereas the 5102 was released in either platinum or platinum/rosegold.
A date complication was added to the 6102 in a rather elegant way. Instead of disturbing the dials beauty, a peripheral date track was added on the inside of the bezel, and a red lunette tipped hand pointing to the date. This is in line with the modern Patek Philippe design, as it is done in the 5212A Calatrava weekly calendar for example.
The gen is a rather large watch with a diameter of 44mm and a thickness of 10,58mm. But the dial makes up for the large size as explained later. The dial is composed of three sapphire discs; a black sapphire disc makes the sky background, another black sapphire crystal disk for the moon and a transparent sapphire crystal disk for the sky chart and milky way.
The sticker price is as astronomical as the watch: 324.000 USD.
Facts first:
The rep measures just shy of 11mm, a well under 0,5mm thicker than the gen, which is astonishingly close (approx. 4% difference).
The rep is 42mm in diameter; 2mm smaller than the gen. I don’t think that is noticeable on the wrist, other than it’s more practical, as the rep will therefore fit smaller wrists.
Lug width rep: 20mm
Buckle width rep: 18mm
Buckle: Comes with a rosegold Patek Philippe deployant.
Both measured and confirmed with mounting a 20/18 strap onto the watch/deployant.
Strap: The rep strap is crap, that’s a fact!
Case:
Bezel
The bezel is thick and sloped. Making the watch look thinner and smaller.
The rehaut has the correct markings, red hour markers and a shiny surface, true to gen.
Lugs/Case
Case is well-polished and has stepped-lugs. The rose gold has a slight red hue, a bit more than my liking, which makes it not look like the same high quality the ZF 5296R has.
The lugs are slightly downward curved. So the watch wears true to it’s size. If you fit a 42 mm watch, this will fit you. And if it looks a bit big, it really won’t matter as explained before. As long as the lugs doesn’t surpass your wrist on the sides, your good.
My estimate would be that the smallest wrist for this watch would be about 16cm. My wrist is 17cm. But this I can’t guarantee in any way. You have to try on a similar sized watch if you want to be sure.
There are two crowns, positioned at 2 and 4 and a recessed pusher at 9. This is true to gen. The recessed pusher at 9 does not have a function, but I’m glad they put it there for the overall esthetics.
Movement:
Is an astonishing micro-rotor movement – I think Miyota based – 4hz (28800vph). And I repeat micro-rotor movement!
It looks a lot like the Patek Philippe caliber 240 LU CL C, but has some visual flaws in structure; the cleft between the plate with the Patek seal and the plate with the serial number is curved in the rep, while it’s stepped in the gen. There is a typho “adjusted to heat sold”, should’ve been “cold”. But the letters are small and nothing you would notice with the naked eye. Especially if you have the watch on the supplied deployant. You can’t come close enough to see it clearly.
But boy is this movement a beauty! It oozes quality and ingenuity. Gives the watch so much depth and authenticity. It’s a joy to take the watch of and just look at this amazing movement.
The movement has what looks like Geneva stripes, also on the rotor. It shines and the visible surfaces are well-executed.
Hands:
Like in the gen there is a minute hand, hour hand and a red lunette tipped date-hand. The date-hand advances at midnight, and can be set with the pusher at 2 in position one. Hour and minutes are set with this pusher in position 2. The watch can be manually wound with the pusher in position one. The central ring of the date hand is a bit bigger in diameter than the gen, hence more visible. A relatively insignificant detail, but you should know that the fault is there. The color of the hands is slightly greyish, which is a bit more than in the gen.
Dial:
Here it gets a bit complicated. The dial consists of three disks:
1. The black milky way disk (main dial):
This disk is made of black sapphire in the gen. And that gives the gen a shiny black dial. In the rep it’s a matte black.
This disk has a circular opening, through which the moon orbits are visible from the disk below. The disk is movable with the crown at 4. It doesn’t move by itself like the gen does, which I think is totally acceptable. This isn’t a 324k watch after all.
The movability gives you the option of putting the circular opening in a spot, where the underlying moon looks good, as there are several different shaped moons in the disc below.
2. Moon orbits disk (bottom disk):
Visually:
There are 11 moons on this disk, which are all silver, they should have been white and some of them have a weird looking appearance. They made the moons round and crescent shaped:
They should have made the shape like drawn below, so that when the circular opening of the dial disc is moved, the moon appears like a round or crescent gen-like looking shape:
That would actually have been pretty easy for the rep makers, if they had realized this. And there is an earlier version, where they got this correct, so I’m a bit surprised that this later version has got it wrong. They just needed to make the width the same as the opening circle and then add an inverted half-circle on each side:
The opening can be placed in a spot without a moon, or with a crescent or full moon to hide this flaw on the wrist (although these will be silver instead of white).
Function:
The moon orbits disk is fixed to the date hand and moves with advancing dates, which is a nice feature.
3. The transparent disk – “the biggest flaw on the watch disk”:
This disk is transparent and has additional stars on it, it is mounted on the central pin, where normally a second’s hand is mounted.
And it moves at the speed of a second’s hand.
This is the biggest flaw in this watch IMO. Because the transparent disk makes the dial look blurry. Also the moving stars like a seconds hand looks a bit weird. In the gen you look directly on the main dial disk (here mentioned as disk 1):
Crystal:
The sapphire crystal is not AR coated. But mostly it is the transparent disk (disk 3) which reflects and also blurs the dial.
On the wrist:
It is a big watch, but its presence on the wrist is justified by the astronomical complication and the beauty of the dial. The thin profile makes it look well balanced. It is surprisingly elegant even though it’s not a subtle watch at all. It’s a watch that will get noticed.
On the wrist this watch is nice from one meter’s distance. But the problem is there is a moving "seconds hand disk", the edge of this disk is visible and the disk itself blurs the dial. It looks cheap when looked upon closer. If this disk could be removed and more stars were painted on the main dial, this would really be a stunning watch.
Other versions of this rep:
It’s noteworthy to mention that there are several versions out there of this rep.
And there is a spelling mistake on the movement “Pnilippe”. Also there are very few stars on the dial and the moons are weird looking like on the watch mentioned in the review. It doesn't have the "moving stars disk".
3. GRF version: There is a GRF version which is the same as the reviewed watch. Only difference being that the dates are descending like shown on the TWF version.
4. The reviewed watch, is an updated TWF version. I got this watch from Watchfinder (Tim).
Summary of flaws:
Major:
Modifications:
My thought was so remove the moving stars disk and maybe paint more stars on the main dial. Problem I encountered was, that the movement can’t be removed from the watch; The ring between the movement and case, which normally can be removed, is welded into the case:
If one tried to access the dial etc from the front there is a risk of scratching the case. This is probably possible though (according to comments below in this thread). I will post on update on this.
Conclusion:
The Patek Philippe Celestial is for the gentleman who enjoy sophisticated complexity. Who appreciate mankind’s understanding of our place in the universe, and like the beauty in the representation thereof and to have that on the wrist!
Not many people on earth have the possibility of buying the Patek Philippe 6102R Celestial Moon Age though. This rep gives you the chance to feel being part of Patek Philippe’s tradition of making complicated celestial watches. Although it comes with some "complications" so to speak. The watch has a few major flaws, which are detrimental and will need to be modded - if possible. Which at the moment i'm not sure if they can. Will update on progress.
If these mods can be done, this will be a beautiful representation of the gen. Although a gentleman buying this, shouldn’t be shy of wearing a rep of a 324k watch, and has to do the mods, or else upon closer inspection it will give away easily that it’s a rep.
Personally I would’ve appreciated the effort, if they had taken the good things from the earlier version and corrected the avoidable mistakes by:
Imagine the opportunity to look down on your wrist any time, and enjoy the beauty of having the stars, moon and milky way on your wrist.
When i published the review i wasn't aware that the mods can maybe be done as explained below.
Patek Philippe 6102R Celestial Moon Age.
Allured by the beauty of the night sky, man has always looked up and wondered about our place among the stars. In this vast universe filled with billions of stars and galaxies our earth is like a tiny little insignificant particle. Yet the ability of man to reflect upon our existence makes us extraordinary. We are made of the universe we are placed in. In a way the universe has evolved the ability to reflect upon itself. And therefore, our place in the universe – so small and insignificant as it may seem in the context of the vast space and amount of time – is still exceptional.
We have come far in our understanding. From the early archaic conceptions of earth being flat and the center of universe, to Newton explaining us the mechanics of the universe, the observational astronomy of Galileo and Tycho Brahe leading us to understanding the dance of the heavenly bodies.
Theories have developed, our understanding will change and new answers will arise. But the beauty of the sky with all its glittering stars and moonshine lighting up the dark has been captivating us for centuries. That beauty is what this watch is all about. It gives us a view of the nocturnal sky in the northern hemisphere and phases and orbit of the moon. And boy how it does it! The ellipse on the dial frames the portion of the visible sky from the cities located in the latitude of Geneva.
Depicted is a picture of the Milky way over Geneva to show the resemblance on the dial:
Patek Philippe 6102R Celestial Moon Age.
Patek Philippe are known for their complicated watches. They are specially known for the manual wound chronographs, perpetual calendars, minute repeaters, the world timers and astronomical watches. The most iconic of the latter being the Henry Graves Jr. Supercomplication pocket watch from 1933, which sold for an astronomical 23.98M USD on the Sotheby auction in 2014.
The Patek Philippe 6102R – released at Baselworld 2015 – is therefore an heir to a proud lineage. Although its predecessor, the 5102, is relatively new and was produced from 2002 – 2012:
The 5102 was replaced by the 6102P in 2012, which is the platinum version of the 6102R:
The 6102 has a different case construction and the 6102R comes in rosegold, whereas the 5102 was released in either platinum or platinum/rosegold.
A date complication was added to the 6102 in a rather elegant way. Instead of disturbing the dials beauty, a peripheral date track was added on the inside of the bezel, and a red lunette tipped hand pointing to the date. This is in line with the modern Patek Philippe design, as it is done in the 5212A Calatrava weekly calendar for example.
The gen is a rather large watch with a diameter of 44mm and a thickness of 10,58mm. But the dial makes up for the large size as explained later. The dial is composed of three sapphire discs; a black sapphire disc makes the sky background, another black sapphire crystal disk for the moon and a transparent sapphire crystal disk for the sky chart and milky way.
The sticker price is as astronomical as the watch: 324.000 USD.
The rep
Facts first:
The rep measures just shy of 11mm, a well under 0,5mm thicker than the gen, which is astonishingly close (approx. 4% difference).
The rep is 42mm in diameter; 2mm smaller than the gen. I don’t think that is noticeable on the wrist, other than it’s more practical, as the rep will therefore fit smaller wrists.
Lug width rep: 20mm
Buckle width rep: 18mm
Buckle: Comes with a rosegold Patek Philippe deployant.
Both measured and confirmed with mounting a 20/18 strap onto the watch/deployant.
Strap: The rep strap is crap, that’s a fact!
Case:
Bezel
The bezel is thick and sloped. Making the watch look thinner and smaller.
The rehaut has the correct markings, red hour markers and a shiny surface, true to gen.
Lugs/Case
Case is well-polished and has stepped-lugs. The rose gold has a slight red hue, a bit more than my liking, which makes it not look like the same high quality the ZF 5296R has.
The lugs are slightly downward curved. So the watch wears true to it’s size. If you fit a 42 mm watch, this will fit you. And if it looks a bit big, it really won’t matter as explained before. As long as the lugs doesn’t surpass your wrist on the sides, your good.
My estimate would be that the smallest wrist for this watch would be about 16cm. My wrist is 17cm. But this I can’t guarantee in any way. You have to try on a similar sized watch if you want to be sure.
There are two crowns, positioned at 2 and 4 and a recessed pusher at 9. This is true to gen. The recessed pusher at 9 does not have a function, but I’m glad they put it there for the overall esthetics.
Movement:
Is an astonishing micro-rotor movement – I think Miyota based – 4hz (28800vph). And I repeat micro-rotor movement!
It looks a lot like the Patek Philippe caliber 240 LU CL C, but has some visual flaws in structure; the cleft between the plate with the Patek seal and the plate with the serial number is curved in the rep, while it’s stepped in the gen. There is a typho “adjusted to heat sold”, should’ve been “cold”. But the letters are small and nothing you would notice with the naked eye. Especially if you have the watch on the supplied deployant. You can’t come close enough to see it clearly.
But boy is this movement a beauty! It oozes quality and ingenuity. Gives the watch so much depth and authenticity. It’s a joy to take the watch of and just look at this amazing movement.
The movement has what looks like Geneva stripes, also on the rotor. It shines and the visible surfaces are well-executed.
Hands:
Like in the gen there is a minute hand, hour hand and a red lunette tipped date-hand. The date-hand advances at midnight, and can be set with the pusher at 2 in position one. Hour and minutes are set with this pusher in position 2. The watch can be manually wound with the pusher in position one. The central ring of the date hand is a bit bigger in diameter than the gen, hence more visible. A relatively insignificant detail, but you should know that the fault is there. The color of the hands is slightly greyish, which is a bit more than in the gen.
Dial:
Here it gets a bit complicated. The dial consists of three disks:
- The main dial is the black milky way disk. It has a sky and milky way chart on it. It also has a circular opening, through which the moons from the disk (disk 2) below are visible.
- The bottom disk is a moon orbits disk, which has moons of different shapes.
- A transparent disk, which has additional stars on it, is mounted on the central seconds hand pin and moves like a second’s hand. This disk shouldn’t have been there at all as explained below.
1. The black milky way disk (main dial):
This disk is made of black sapphire in the gen. And that gives the gen a shiny black dial. In the rep it’s a matte black.
This disk has a circular opening, through which the moon orbits are visible from the disk below. The disk is movable with the crown at 4. It doesn’t move by itself like the gen does, which I think is totally acceptable. This isn’t a 324k watch after all.
The movability gives you the option of putting the circular opening in a spot, where the underlying moon looks good, as there are several different shaped moons in the disc below.
2. Moon orbits disk (bottom disk):
Visually:
There are 11 moons on this disk, which are all silver, they should have been white and some of them have a weird looking appearance. They made the moons round and crescent shaped:
They should have made the shape like drawn below, so that when the circular opening of the dial disc is moved, the moon appears like a round or crescent gen-like looking shape:
That would actually have been pretty easy for the rep makers, if they had realized this. And there is an earlier version, where they got this correct, so I’m a bit surprised that this later version has got it wrong. They just needed to make the width the same as the opening circle and then add an inverted half-circle on each side:
The opening can be placed in a spot without a moon, or with a crescent or full moon to hide this flaw on the wrist (although these will be silver instead of white).
Function:
The moon orbits disk is fixed to the date hand and moves with advancing dates, which is a nice feature.
3. The transparent disk – “the biggest flaw on the watch disk”:
This disk is transparent and has additional stars on it, it is mounted on the central pin, where normally a second’s hand is mounted.
And it moves at the speed of a second’s hand.
This is the biggest flaw in this watch IMO. Because the transparent disk makes the dial look blurry. Also the moving stars like a seconds hand looks a bit weird. In the gen you look directly on the main dial disk (here mentioned as disk 1):
Crystal:
The sapphire crystal is not AR coated. But mostly it is the transparent disk (disk 3) which reflects and also blurs the dial.
On the wrist:
It is a big watch, but its presence on the wrist is justified by the astronomical complication and the beauty of the dial. The thin profile makes it look well balanced. It is surprisingly elegant even though it’s not a subtle watch at all. It’s a watch that will get noticed.
On the wrist this watch is nice from one meter’s distance. But the problem is there is a moving "seconds hand disk", the edge of this disk is visible and the disk itself blurs the dial. It looks cheap when looked upon closer. If this disk could be removed and more stars were painted on the main dial, this would really be a stunning watch.
Other versions of this rep:
It’s noteworthy to mention that there are several versions out there of this rep.
- There is an early version from 2016, which is 13 mm thick and doesn’t have a micro-rotor movement. That version has the correct shape on the moons disk and is like I have mentioned above. It also has a disc with stars which rotates like a seconds hand, which is also a significant flaw, but they got the dial correct. Here seen in the platinum:
The versions after this all have bad dials as mentioned below, which is surprising, as they could at least have copied that part from this earlier version. - Then there is the TWF version, which is the most flawed. It’s thickness is a nice 11mm, but the dates are descending instead of ascending.
And there is a spelling mistake on the movement “Pnilippe”. Also there are very few stars on the dial and the moons are weird looking like on the watch mentioned in the review. It doesn't have the "moving stars disk".
3. GRF version: There is a GRF version which is the same as the reviewed watch. Only difference being that the dates are descending like shown on the TWF version.
4. The reviewed watch, is an updated TWF version. I got this watch from Watchfinder (Tim).
Summary of flaws:
Major:
- The transparent stars disk turns around like a seconds hand - This shouldn't have been there.
- The black milky way disk have too few stars.
- The shape of the moons are wrong and color of the stars/moons should've been white.
- Main dial disk is not shiny
- Rosegold has too much red hue
- The hands are slightly too greyish
- On the movement the cleft between two of the plates should’ve had a notch
Modifications:
My thought was so remove the moving stars disk and maybe paint more stars on the main dial. Problem I encountered was, that the movement can’t be removed from the watch; The ring between the movement and case, which normally can be removed, is welded into the case:
If one tried to access the dial etc from the front there is a risk of scratching the case. This is probably possible though (according to comments below in this thread). I will post on update on this.
Conclusion:
The Patek Philippe Celestial is for the gentleman who enjoy sophisticated complexity. Who appreciate mankind’s understanding of our place in the universe, and like the beauty in the representation thereof and to have that on the wrist!
Not many people on earth have the possibility of buying the Patek Philippe 6102R Celestial Moon Age though. This rep gives you the chance to feel being part of Patek Philippe’s tradition of making complicated celestial watches. Although it comes with some "complications" so to speak. The watch has a few major flaws, which are detrimental and will need to be modded - if possible. Which at the moment i'm not sure if they can. Will update on progress.
If these mods can be done, this will be a beautiful representation of the gen. Although a gentleman buying this, shouldn’t be shy of wearing a rep of a 324k watch, and has to do the mods, or else upon closer inspection it will give away easily that it’s a rep.
Personally I would’ve appreciated the effort, if they had taken the good things from the earlier version and corrected the avoidable mistakes by:
- Putting more stars on the main dial
- Instead of putting a moving stars disk on the seconds hand pin. Which looks stupid when it moves, blurs the dial and has a visible edge.
- They should’ve made the color of the stars/moons and shape of the moons exactly like the first version.
Imagine the opportunity to look down on your wrist any time, and enjoy the beauty of having the stars, moon and milky way on your wrist.
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