Earlier this week, Patek Philippe announced their official entry for Patek Philippe Sonnerie Minute Repeater Only Watch 2023 (now being held May 10, 2024). The new watch, a ref. 6301A, features a grande et petite sonnerie and minute repeater with a grande feu enamel dial, all cased in steel, one of the rarest metals for a complicated Patek.
Last year’s delay in the Only Watch auction resulted in several brands pulling out but also had add-on effects for the brands that stuck around. Some smaller brands use Patek Philippe Sonnerie Minute Repeater Only Watch as a chance to test new ideas for future releases and need the positive press of massive auction results to prove the value of their eventual serial production. Patek, however, decided they’d rather not wait. Instead of holding off on launching production of their Only Watch release-based series, they just moved forward with it anyway and announced the 30-piece limited series of the ref. 1938 Minute Repeater Alarm last November. The watch felt very unusual compared to past Pateks, with a grand feu enamel portrait of Philippe Stern on the dial. This new watch feels much more “Patek.”
As is always the case with Patek Philippe Sonnerie Minute Repeater Only Watch , the new 6301A is a unique version of Patek’s grande et petite sonnerie and minute repeater, featuring the manually wound caliber GS 36-750 PS IRM movement seen through the exhibition caseback, which strikes three gongs. The watch is cased in steel, one of the most ideal metals for a chiming watch (denser materials like gold or platinum deaden the sound), measuring 44.8mm by 12.03mm thick. As far as I can tell, this is the first time Patek has done a standalone grande et petite sonnerie watch (the only other I can think of is their record-setting Only Watch Grandmaster Chime). That means the watch strikes the quarters and hours in grande sonnerie mode or only the hours if set to petite sonnerie. The watch also features a silence and can chime the time on demand with the minute repeater triggered by a monopusher-style button in the crown.
The movement measures a very compact 37mm by 7.5mm thick while still housing two mainspring barrels that impart 72 hours of power reserve for the movement and 24 hours for the strikeworks. That extra power allows the watch to complete all 1056 strikes from the sonnerie over 24 hours. The movement also features jumping small seconds (also known as deadbeat seconds).
The dial is capped with a Rare Handcrafts dial with hand-guilloché swirling pattern with Grand Feu blue-green enamel similar to the newest version of the Cathedral Gongs minute repeater ref. 5178G. The dial is set with 12 baguette-cut diamond hour markers (0.45ct worth of diamonds). The power reserve indicators for the movement and the strikework features transfer-printed “Only One” along their edge. In all, it’s an eye-catch piece from the brand and one that feels more harmonious with other releases they’ve done in the past, and while it won’t come anywhere near breaking the record of the steel Grandmaster Chime, it’s a watch I certainly would love to see in the metal. Patek Philippe Sonnerie Minute Repeater Only Watch