The Skinny
- 40mm x 8.53mm
- White Gold
- Caliber 26‑330 S C
- Year of Release – 2022
- Serial Production
- Price upon release – $39,900
Generalities
Before I get into the specifics of the Patek Philippe 5226G, I best get some generalities out of the way so as to save us time and space below.
I absolutely adore this watch.
It is certainly the modern Calatrava I like most, almost certainly the Patek Philippe I like the most, and conceivably the modern watch I like the most.
The 5226G is a postmodern thing.
The 5226G draws on current trends that look to the past (e.g. aged lume, military minimalism) as a way to be current (big trend there) while also paying tribute to its own storied legacy (e.g. the Calatrava Ref 96 Nightwatchman, which sold for 322,000CHF in 2016) with an irreverent tendency toward pastiche – meaning, throwing various elements together – (e.g. numerals and hands from the wonderful 5172G chronograph and the even more wonderful 5320G perpetual calendar, hobnailing from the 6119X Calatravas and other older references, and a lug style reminiscent of the 3448 perpetual calendar, especially in white gold).
Postmodern things are complex, and understanding them isn’t easy. I will address easy dismissals of the 5226G below.
I have struggled to understand a number of recent Patek Philipps.
Largely because they’re too postmodern and loud, the most glaring example being the rainbow bejeweled 7968-300R Aquanaut, which I have taken as an indication that there are human beings out there with a neural makeup so wholly unlike mine as to suggest a separate species.
I mention this to point out that one cannot successfully generalize Patek Philippe, and that understanding the brand in the 21st century requires more nuance than understanding other brands.
Even a savvy watch thief might miss the 5226G.
And this is the crux of my adoration for this Calatrava: it captures the understatement and discretion that distinguished the Calatrava – if not Patek Philippe entirely – during the golden era of wrist watches, which I contend ran from around 1930 to around 1970, the year I was born and watches began to get loud like disco.
Capturing the Quiet Side of Patek Philippe
If, like me, you prefer understated watches that are also horological masterworks, then you may be interested in the 5226G. What’s so appealing to me about understated masterworks like this one is not only how wonderfully private the wearing experience is, but also the level of careful design required to make it work.
Horological Privacy
If someone knows the 5226G, then someone knows, but most people will just see a plain, utilitarian watch. Despite my proclivity to share images of my watches online, the privacy I experience with a watch like the Patek Philippe 5226G in real life is one of my greatest pleasures. I should be clear that this preference for privacy isn’t due to a fear of theft, but a fear of something social – not ostentation, really, but that someone else will take something away from my relationship with my watch – monogamy may be the right word, or just selfishness. Whatever it is, the 5226G is that rare modern Patek Philippe that will offer anyone wearing it the utmost in privacy. It is a refined white gold secret.
Careful. Careful!
If a lot of careful design goes into a rainbow Aquanaut, I can’t see it, but with the 5226G I see a level of care that’s genuinely endearing. I’d like to spend a quiet afternoon talking in hushed tones over excellent coffee with its creator, learning the subtleties of their mind, their inner curiosities. I’d want to take their pulse and note it down with a fountain pen in my little notebook and say, “Thank you, I will always cherish this.”
This was what democracy was meant to accomplish – a quiet, austere, authentic civility – and the Calatrava Reference 96 of 1932 served those democratic principles – flawed as they were and always will be – but the rising middle class was an indication that the wealth gap was filling up with something leaning toward greater equality and the Calatrava was there to tell time and add quiet sophistication to the wrists of intelligent citizens. This is the opposite of the rainbow Aquanaut’s loudness, in fact, and I’m thrilled that Patek Philippe has found a way to honor the brand’s storied quiet side without dulling down a single facet of the timepieces itself.
Some may wonder if I would be more drawn to the more traditional Calatrava Reference 5227G in white gold, which is in every way closer to an original Calatrava Reference 96. I have had the 5227G on my wrist many times and find that it’s not exactly quiet. At 39mm, the 5227G is very much a modern dress watch, and the polishing is so excellent that it has a measure of bling.
It is the toolish 5226G which has fallen squarely onto the field watch side of the Calatrava dichotomy, which is exactly where I would like to fall as well.
Impeccable, Interesting & Imaginative
Because the elements of the 5226G come together so seamlessly, it’s hard to see at first just how intricate and special this watch is.
The case is entirely unique. The hobnail along the mid-case is practically hidden from view, adding to the sense of private luxury this watch offers. The size is 40mm, which actually helps the watch seem unimportant – just another biggish field watch, not huge, not small, just normal. And it’s abundantly comfortable and elegant at just 8.53mm tall.
The lugs, which recall Patek Philippe Reference 3448 perpetual calendar models, are plain-looking at a glance, but downright wild upon closer inspection.
The hobnail pattern continues around the whole mid-case, while the lugs are only attached to the case-back, and don’t meet the mid-case at all. (This is kind of a reverse approach to that of Bremont’s Trip-Tick case (also seen later on the Audemars Piguet Code 11.59 case), which attaches the lugs to the top part of a three-piece case.) Like Frank Lloyd Wright’s cantilevered balconies, these lugs are clever feats of engineering that simply look and perform wonderfully without showing off how it’s done.
As long as humans with neural makeups like mine are looking at examples of the 5226G, this case will be known as one of the very few classic architectural innovations of early 21st century watchmaking.
I’m fascinated that the gnarly rough surface of the dial is derived from a vintage camera body. And with a smoked black paint job. What? That’s wild. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect from some over-reaching micro-brand that had fetishized trendy vintage Leicas or something predictable. But this isn’t some crappy thing; it’s a Patek dial.
You’d really need to know a thing or two about stamped dials to understand the level of craft required to make this gnarly-looking surface as satisfying and luxurious as it is. This required insider-knowledge only adds to the private luxury of the watch.
Caliber 26‑330 S C
Previously known as the venerable Caliber 324 which has powered endless Pateks over the past few decades – including some of their most complicated watches – the updated Caliber 26-330 is a technical and aesthetic improvement over its predecessor.
Technical upgrades include one of the more fascinating things I’ve heard from Patek in a while: sprung teeth on the 4th wheel (which drives the second hand) for a smoother flow of time. Other upgrades include tweaks to the in-house silicon balance spring, and so on. It’s not an overhaul, but an update.
Fans of brands like Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Jaeger LeCoultre, Lange & Sohn and even the more industrialized Rolex appreciate that the calibers stick around for decades on end, seeing only occasional incremental improvements. It’s the mature approach to watchmaking, and it suits this mature watch.
The aesthetic upgrades of the movement are better polishing and engraving throughout, which anyone paying this much for a watch should expect.
The watch runs at -3/+4 seconds per day, which is fantastic, of course, and the movement carries Patek’s hallmark.
So Easily Dismissed
When Patek Philippe released the 5226G in April of 2022, I watched as journalists and their hoards of commenting trolls dismissed this watch. I didn’t understand what the problem was, but it seems related to the reaction that I saw the watch space give to the 5524G family of pilot-ish Travel Time Calatravas in 2016. Folks were balking because the watches didn’t seem like Pateks, somehow. Too toolish, perhaps.
But this made no sense to me as both the 5226G we’re considering here and the 5524G of 2016 were based on something rather specific in the Patek Calatrava back catalog. The way I read this dismissal is that Patek shouldn’t make tool watches – unless it’s the Aquanaut or Nautilus, of course.
As the craze for steel Nautilus 5711s was going crazier, Patek canceled the 5711 earlier in 2022 – just in advance of releasing this Calatrava, in fact – and among the many theories as to why, I believe it comes down to Patek reframing the role of the Nautilus and the Calatrava in a manner that reflects the actual history of those models. It’s a way of straightening out a lineage that passing trends were bending too far.
Think of it this way: In 2022 Patek said to the watch world: You can’t have anymore 5711s in steel, and if you want a real tool watch then here’s the original tool watch we made, which was the military-oriented Calatravas of yesteryear. If you want a fancy waterproof disco watch, we make those in gold, and here’s one in rose gold with rainbow jewels and an orange rubber strap that competes with Chernobyl as a hot zone – in case you weren’t sure what disco looked like.
I see this shifting strategy as an assertion of Patek’s history with a loving eye on its future – a clarification of sorts, one that could save Patek Philippe from being boxed in by a hit watch the way some believe Audemars Piguet has boxed itself in with the Royal Oak.
These are clever and subtle moves by Patek that require some nuance to see. It’s a way to satisfy both species of humans: those who want the full-blown 70s disco experience and those who long for the quieter democratic sensibilities of an older Patek Philippe. But how wonderful that Patek has spared nothing in terms of design or craft in executing the most understated of its modern watches with the 5226G, making us introverts quietly sipping coffee in some dark cafe as happy as the extroverts tripping on the rainbow lights at the disco.