Patek Philippe 2526

Patek Philippe 2526 on bracelet circa 1950s

Reference 2526 was introduced into the market in 1952 and was Patek Philippe's first self-winding watch ever made, starting with movement number 760'000 (delivered in July 1953 to Mr. J.B. Champion, one of Patek Philippe's faithful clients. This watch, fitted with a gold bracelet, is today the pride of a discerning collector). The model features the legendary calibre 12-600 AT which was granted Swiss patent No. 289758 in 1953 for "a self-winding mechanism for a wristwatch movement using the energy supplied by a rotary mass causing an eccentric part to transmit a swinging movement to an organ of the mechanism". The first 500 examples of reference 2526 were fitted with the earliest version of calibre 12'''600 without ball bearing, rendering these watches particularly rare and collectable.The majority of reference 2526 was cased in yellow gold, a small series in pink gold and an exceedingly limited number in white gold and platinum.Mainly fitted with enamel dials with applied gold baton numerals, the white gold and platinum examples were also available with silvered metal dials with diamond indexes.