A picture I took of a 1992 Patek Philippe catalogue Let's get the potentially controversial part of this out of the way: Ellipse is a misnomer when it comes to the Patek Philippe references 3788, 3930 and related versions. More specifically, the watch case in these designs is not rendered in the geometrical version of an ellipse that is frequently taught in high school. I'm honestly a little embarrassed to have only recently come to this conclusion, but geometry was never my strong suit. I won't take all the blame. In most discussions of the Ellipse (the watch), inevitably the "golden ratio" comes up. I think I was distracted by that, because the golden ratio is a pretty interesting topic. Nevertheless, I'd like to set the record straight, or at least straighter, with this post.
An ellipse is basically an oblong shape. The Ellipse in Washington, DC, a grass area in President's Park. Compared to a canonical ellipse, the Patek Ellipse has sides that are too straight leading to "corners" that arch too quickly. Real ellipses are also defined by an equation, like:
A graph of this equation is below. The graph of the ellipse equation. As I'll show in just a bit, the case profile of the Ellipse watch is also defined by an equation, but it is meaningfully different from an actual ellipse. The Cartier Bagnoire is much closer to an ellipse than the Patek Ellipse.
I came to this realization after flipping through the pages of a 1992 Patek catalogue I received as a holiday gift. Another picture of a page from the 1992 Patek catalogue. There, I saw a designer's drawing of the Ellipse watch, which I share here. I'd never seen this drawing before. It features a crosshair at the center surrounded by four overlapping circles. I later learned that these four overlapping circles are called a quatrefoil, a shape that is important in a number of religions. Some claim that in Christianity it represents the four gospel authors in the Bible. The design also appears in mosques. Van Cleef and Arpels famously adopted a quatrefoil in their Alhambra bracelet.
I spent a bit of time trying to figure out how a combination of the quatrefoil and the golden ratio could result in the case design we find in the Ellipse. Example of a cloverleaf highway design in Michigan, US. That effort, by and large, went nowhere. I will note that the quatrefoil drawing presented in the 1992 Patek catalogue does lend credence to the claim on John Riordan's Collectibility that one possible designer of the Patek Ellipse was inspired by the interwoven "cloverleaf" offramp pattern frequently featured on American highways.
Interestingly, it is entirely possible that Patek's Ellipse designer was inspired by Hein's fountain, rather than the golden ratio. The timing is consistent. Hein's design was presented to Stockholm planners in 1960. The Patek Ellipse debuted in 1968.
In the image presented here, you can see that the gaph of the above equation matches a photo of the Patek Ellipse almost perfectly. A graph of the equation defining the shape of Patek's Ellipse (L) and the graphed equation overlaying a Patek Ellipse (R).You can also see that the actual equation for the Ellipse watch is meaningfully different from the ellipse equation I presented earlier. Interestingly, we now know exactly where the golden ratio fits into the design of the Patek Ellipse. If you look in the exponent of the equation just above, it rounds to 2.62. This is one plus a rounded value of the golden ration (1.62).
What it might look like if Aragon and Argon watches actually went to court over the trademark dispute. My prior post described a disappointing development for those collectors hoping to acquire an Argon Spaceone watch via the brand's Kickstarter campaign. The campaign had reached over $1 million in funding when Kickstarter's management stepped in and froze the whole thing over an "intellectual property dispute." When I posted about this development on Instagram , Hodinkee editor Tony Traina noted in the comments that another brand, Aragon watches, had filed a complaint with the US Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) back in April (thanks Tony!). Argon's account replied and indicated that they had already filed a registration for their brand name and they were retaining counsel in New York City. On Tuesday, June 27 of this week, more details were offered via a lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The case is filed on behalf
Among many avid watch collectors, the term "in house movement" seems to elicit eyerolling disdain. Pieces of an assortment, including balance spring, from a non-Swiss movement. There is a sizeable perception that "in house" is, in fact, nothing more than an unnecessary marketing ploy designed to tease more money out of the wallet of buyers (by way of definition, an "in house" movement means that the mechanism inside a watch was predominently manufactured by a brand itself, kind of like "we make our own bread" at a restaurant). I'll confess that I'd begun to think similarly, that is, until I read a 66 page report posted by the Swiss Competition Commision on May 10, 2023. Yes, this is the kind of thing an economist finds interesting on a weekend, or at least this economist. Before we get into the details of this report, in the interest of full disclosure I should say that the original document was in a different language: lawyerese.
There comes a moment in the servicing of a watch that is probably easy to miss among the hundreds of steps required to remove a movement from a case, inspect the parts, repair anything amiss, lubricate all the pieces, and put the whole thing together again. A watch that Rolex's investigator bought at Beckertime for approximately $4,500. The lawsuit refers to this as "Counterfeit Watch One." That moment is when a watchmaker takes the dial and reattaches it to the movement. There is nothing particularly unique when it comes to the tools required or the tasks involved in this step. Instead, what is unique about this moment is that the watchmaker holds in their hand a mark that is not the property of the watchmaker and it is not exactly the property of the watch's owner. In the case of Vacheron Constantin, that mark is a Maltese Cross. For Audemars Piguet, it is the brand's initials. When it comes to Rolex, the mark is a widely recognized crown. If the reassembly
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