Here it is! The watch that, for better or for worse, will likely be the most talked about watch of all the new releases being announced today. After discontinuing their white dial steel Nautilus and then later discontinuing the remaining blue dial Nautilus, Patek Philippe has announced that there will be one more 5711… seemingly as a grande finale of sorts for the steel 5711 Nautilus before it eventually is replaced with something else entirely.
There was some talk for a while that Patek was going to be releasing what would be known as the “6711” Nautilus and that there would be a change of material used for the watch. Specifically, it was thought that there was a decent chance Patek would use titanium for the case rather than stainless steel. This was all entirely based on speculation, but with more and more companies starting to use “newer” materials, such as titanium, it was thought that Patek would follow suit. This obviously wasn’t the case though, as we’re getting a new 5711, but who knows? If we do get what would be known as a “6711” one day, there’s no telling whether that watch would be offered in titanium or not. This 5711 sticks with the trend of the two other recently discontinued Nautilus models and is cased in stainless steel.
I don’t think it’s too important to go over the specs as everyone generally knows the basics of a Nautilus by now, but here they are anyway: The Natilus comes in at 40mm in diameter and 8.3mm thick. It uses the self-winding Calibre 26‑330 S C, a movement that beats at 4 Hz which employs Patek’s Gyromax® balance and Spyromax® balance spring. Affixed to the rest of the movement is a 21K gold central rotor adorned with an engraving of Patek Philippe’s Calatrava cross. The watch has a power reserve of 35-45 hours, a date window at three o’clock, a screw-down crown, and the case is water resistant to 120m in water. One interesting thing to note is that Patek is also offering this watch in steel with a baguette diamond bezel.
As the steel 5711 has been covered so much, I won’t say anything about my thoughts regarding Patek’s decision to release another one, and instead I’ll just focus on what they’ve put in this model. I will say that I think this green dial looks pretty good. Considering what this watch is considered to be, I’d hope for more than “pretty good”, but at the very least, I will say it looks a lot better than the old blue dial Nautilus… a blue that looked sickly and murky. Comparing it to the older white dial version, this new dial seems to be at least as good or better. The dial of this new Nautilus takes a lot of inspiration from the 5168G Aquanaut Jumbo in khaki green. Although, technically Patek does refer to this new dial as a “sunburst olive-green”. I’m sure there is a slight distinction between the two in terms of colour, and more importantly that the dial will be a sunburst one rather than the more matte dial of the 5168G, but the similarities are there: similar shades of green on steel Patek sports watches. I’ll eventually see this new watch in person, but, for now, I feel like even though the khaki green has significantly grown on me over the past year or so, the new sunburst green seems to look better.
The 5711 feels good when on and the new dial here looks pretty good, but regardless of any rational reasoning for why this watch might do well, this Nautilus will be another huge success for Patek Philippe. The demand for Patek Nautilus watches is about as high as it gets. At least in terms of notoriety outside of diehard watch enthusiast circles, the only watches out there that have this much hype are the steel Rolex Daytona and the steel Patek Philippe Nautilus. Patek has managed to transform a watch that about a decade ago had a hard time selling to where it is today: where wait times are counted in decades and the current market has driven prices of Nautiluses about 4X and above what the retail price of a steel 5711 is. While I surprisingly do like this watch and think it’s likely the best version of it that they’ve released (I’m still reserving final judgment until I see it in person), my positive feelings towards it are definitely not going to match the hype it’s going to receive among so many today who feel that this watch is the end-all, be-all of high-end watches for some reason. Regardless, it’s a good release from Patek.
On a final note, it seems that green might be the colour of 2021. After Audemars Piguet released a bunch of new green Royal Oak models close to a week ago, we’re now getting a new green Panerai Luminor, a green Cartier Tank, a green Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso, a green Piaget Altiplano, as well as plenty of others. We’re seeing this trend continue with this new green Nautilus. It seems that green is the new blue.
The stainless steel Patek Philippe Nautilus 5711 in olive green is priced at 34,890 USD (insert endless eye rolling here). The baguette diamond bezel variant of this watch is priced at 94,620 USD.