There is a milestone hidden inside this watch that most people never realise. For most of its very long history, Patek Philippe, the most revered name in all of watchmaking, did not make its own automatic chronograph. It built sublime manual chronographs, and it made automatic movements of every other kind, but a self-winding chronograph movement of its own was something the house held back on until it could do it exactly right. That moment came with the 5960, Patek's first in-house automatic chronograph, and this 5960/01G is the evolution of that landmark: a watch that was, quite simply, a turning point for the greatest name in the craft.
What makes it so satisfying, though, is not just that milestone but everything Patek chose to pack around it, because the 5960 is one of the most complete everyday watches imaginable. It is three serious things at once. It is a chronograph, a stopwatch you can start and stop at the press of a button. It is an annual calendar, tracking the day, the date and the month and adjusting itself for the different lengths of the months. And it is self-winding, drawing its power from the motion of the wrist. Most watches do one clever thing; this one does the work of several, and does them all with the ease of a watch you can genuinely put on every morning and rely on completely.
Take the calendar first, because it is the quiet luxury of the watch. Across the top of the dial sit three windows showing the day, the date and the month, here reading the full calendar at a glance, and the mechanism behind them is clever enough to know which months have thirty days and which have thirty-one, rolling over correctly on its own all year long. It needs correcting only once a year, at the end of February, the single month it cannot predict. That means a watch that simply keeps the date right, month after month, with no fiddling, the convenience of a far more complex calendar in a form made for daily life.
Then there is the chronograph, and here Patek did something ingenious with the layout. Rather than cluttering the dial with the usual scatter of separate sub-dials, it combined the chronograph's counters into a single register at six o'clock, where two superimposed hands track the elapsed minutes and hours together on neat concentric scales, so you can time something up to twelve hours long and read it all in one tidy place. The elapsed seconds are swept by a vivid red central hand that reaches right across the dial, a stroke of sporting colour that brings the whole face to life. It is a beautifully resolved piece of design, all that information gathered without the dial ever feeling crowded, and it rests on an in-house movement built and finished to the standard that makes Patek Patek, a column-wheel chronograph engineered for smooth, precise operation and visible through the sapphire back.
There are thoughtful touches everywhere you look. A small aperture near twelve tells you whether the watch has enough power wound into it, a helpful thing on an automatic calendar watch that needs to keep running to keep its date, and a day-and-night indication helps when setting the calendar correctly. Every one of these functions is woven into a dial that stays balanced and legible, which is the real art of a watch this capable: making the complex look calm.
The character of this particular version is especially appealing, because it is the sporty, modern face of the 5960. The dial is a rich sunburst blue that shifts and glows as the light moves across it, framed by a finely printed railway-style outer track that gives it a crisp, almost instrument-like quality. Applied white-gold baton markers and hands stand bright against the blue, the red chronograph hand adds its dash of racing energy, and the whole effect is youthful and lively, a Patek that feels at home with a jacket or with rolled-up sleeves. It strikes a balance very few dress-complication watches manage, serious and fun at the same time.
It is cased in white gold, the cool, understated precious metal that lets the blue dial and red accent do the talking, its true preciousness hidden behind a quiet silvery colour that most would take for steel, known only to the wearer and the knowing eye. At a comfortable, modern size of around forty millimetres, it has real presence without bulk, and on its brown calfskin strap with contrast stitching it takes on a relaxed, almost vintage-sporty warmth, the soft leather and pale thread setting off the cool metal and the blue.
That is what makes this 5960 so special. It carries a genuine piece of Patek Philippe history, the house's first in-house automatic chronograph, and surrounds it with a self-adjusting annual calendar and a brilliantly resolved combined chronograph display, so that a single watch tells the full calendar, times events to the hour, and winds itself, all at once. Dressed in a sporty sunburst blue with a flash of red and cased in understated white gold, it is the rare grand complication built for everyday life, a do-everything Patek you could wear and love for a lifetime, and it carries that remarkable completeness with all the effortless authority of the greatest name in watchmaking.
