Eric Clapton’s Patek Philippe White-Gold 5970 with ‘Brick’ Bracelet

When the Patek Philippe ref. 5970 was introduced in 2004, Clapton was suddenly offered an exciting new possibility, and that came down to one big difference between the 40mm ref. 5970 versus the 36.7mm ref. 3970/5004: available dial space. The ref. 5970 offered significantly more dial real estate than its predecessor, which meant that even though the watch already came standard with a handsome bold tachymeter, Clapton could commission a watch with a full set of applied Breguet numeral indices. (When I say “full”, I mean 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 11 and 12, as the watch’s sub-dials encroach on the space normally occupied by the 3,5,6,7 and 9 indices.

And that’s exactly what he did — but this time, he didn’t order just one watch, but a set of four ref. 5970s, all with Breguet numeral dials and fitted with brick bracelets in matching metal, one of the most coveted special-order upgrades around. It is important to understand that in the context of the history of the perpetual calendar chronograph, “brick” bracelets were never sold separately by Patek Philippe and could only be part of a special order for very important customers. Indeed, it is only with the ref. 5270 in 2018 and the ref. 5204 in 2016 that these bracelets made their way into the regular production lineup. But the point is, back in the context of 2006, you had to be The Man to order a watch with a brick bracelet; you had to be a legend to order a watch with a special dial; and you had to be… well, basically Eric Clapton to order four ref. 5970 watches, all with Breguet numerals and all with “brick” bracelets.

These watches were configured as follows: a white-gold watch with a silver dial and black rhodium indices and hands; a pink-gold watch with a white dial. The note that the configurations of the remaining two are unknown publicly as it is only the aforementioned two, that have publicly appeared in auction