Patek Philippe Calatrava SS Power Reserve

[bluemax]

I did not see any reviews of this particular watch, so hopefully this will be useful to somebody. Anyway, this was my first impulse buy - 3 hours after finding out about quality replicas and these forums

I was looking for some elegant watch, without too many complications. After a lot of searching for a nice $300-400 gen, I have almost settled for an Invicta. What a mistake would that be. But, I simply could not find anything both classy and simple in that price range. This Patek beats them all in looks and price, by far.

The watch was bought from Josh (after reading a lot of recommendations on the forums), and it was a fast and pleasurable deal. Note that the model of this watch is misspelled "Calastrava" on the dealer web site.

General appearance and finish: Superb, I could not find any faults except a minor one on the back - the letters "Patek Phillipe" are not perfectly aligned with the rotor (can be seen on the picture), but I had several persons look at the watch, told them that there is a flaw there, and they could not see it. Crystal, case and the caseback are a perfect fit to each other, the dial is very clear and without any faults. The crystal does not have any magnifying/distorting effects under any angle.

Also, it has a nice weight for a dress watch, which is a major plus in my book (hate the watches that I cannot feel on my arm).

Strap: It is fitted to the case with the screws, on which I used Locktite Blue as a precaution. The strap itself is a bit too shiny, and the front has a plastic feel, but I hope that it will look & feel a bit more realistic after some wear.

Movement: The watch has a standard Asian 21J movement, which works fine so far (after ~2 weeks of use); it is keeping good time, being less that 8 sec/day slow. The rotor is quite noisy though - it can be clearly heard in a quiet environment, but it is not that bad. The model of the movement seems to be one of the 250?M from the Cousins web site, like 2501M with power reserve modification.

Accuracy: I could not find gen model which looks like this one, so I guess it is the fantasy model. Not a big fault since nobody know how Pateks look anyway.

Overall, I am very satisfied with the watch, and I plan of wearing it in every occasion I can. A definite recommendation.

P.S.

Had I funny moment when I got to thoroughly examine the watch: "Wtf? They wrote 4 as IIII instead of IV? Ha ha ha...". 5 min and a couple of Google searches later, I bent my head in shame...

[bluemax]

Also, should I buy another movement to have it as a spare? How long these movements have been on the market, could they be pulled from production a couple of years from now?

None of the 250?M movements on the Cousins site seems to be an exact match for this particular configuration, but I guess that those can be used for spare parts...

[chrgod]

Thanks for the review, and congratulations on a nice watch, cool with the power reserve indicator.

I have the same movement in a simple Panerai watch. It does the job well.

[Usil]

Great looking watch. Wear it well.

Usil

[robertk]

Wonderful looking. Forget the spare mvnt for now. These work great and you can always find one if need be.

[eunomians]

Great review for a lovely watch. Pateks are often overlooked in the rep game.