The Life, Legend, and Legacy of the Patek Philippe Nautilus: From Jumbo to Cubitus

It was the United States of America’s bicentennial year and milestones were plentiful. Jimmy Carter was elected president, Alex Haley published Roots, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Dallas Cowboys in the tenth Super Bowl, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest won the Oscar for Best Picture. In the watch industry, the Quartz Revolution — long before it would be tagged in hindsight with the more pejorative “Quartz Crisis” label — was in full swing. Traditional mechanical watches, especially those explicitly positioned as luxury objects, were in danger of becoming passé. Heritage watchmakers like Patek Philippe, which had secured its spot as an unquestioned leader in the luxury timepiece field, had to approach the market differently, and in an unquestionably bold manner — to produce a timepiece that would unmistakably carry forth the maison’s pedigree of elite watchmaking while also acknowledging the new, sportier direction in which the industry was heading in that tumultuous era.

Gérald Genta (1931-2011), designer of the Nautilus

Fortunately, the template for such a game-changer already existed, although it was by no means the glorious success story that it would one day become. Audemars Piguet had taken a similar gamble four years prior, working with an iconoclastic hired gun of watch design named Gérald Genta to produce the Royal Oak, a watch that not only became renowned as the progenitor of the entire “sport-luxury” category but also brought some avant-garde energy to the Le Brassus-based maison’s heretofore staid image. Patek Philippe was seeking a similar result. 

Genta's original, hand-painted sketch of the Nautilus, which sold at Sotheby's in 2022 for $727,000

While Genta was not yet the watch-industry legend that he would be regarded as in his later years (and perhaps even more so after his death in 2011), he did have a track record of success. He had designed Universal Genève’s Polerouter in the 1950s as an employee of that Swiss brand, and had followed up with the memorable design of Omega’s Constellation in 1959 before contributing the Royal Oak to AP. He had even worked with Patek Philippe previously, on the Art Deco-influenced Golden Ellipse dress watch. As the story goes, Genta sketched the idea for the Nautilus on a napkin while sitting at a restaurant near a table of Patek Philippe executives. The distinctive shape of its bezel was inspired, supposedly, by the portholes of an ocean liner and its name, “Nautilus,” by Captain Nemo’s vessel in Jules Verne’s classic novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Patek Philippe Nautilus Ref. 3700/1A, 1976 (photo: Monaco Legend Auctions)

The first Nautilus, Ref. 3700/1A, burst on the scene in 1976. Sporting a smoothly beveled octagonal bezel, a sunburst-finished, horizontally grooved dial reminiscent of a wooden boat’s deck, and a meticulously finished integrated bracelet, the Nautilus’s stainless steel case was huge for the era — 42mm in diameter, with unusual ear-like projections on each side, possibly aping the look of those portholes’ window hinges, and water resistant to an uncommonly robust 120 meters. Also huge was the Nautilus’s price, north of $2,000, which was pretty unthinkable for a steel-cased watch, even several years after the Royal Oak had pioneered such a boldly irreverent strategy. 

The Nautilus Ref. 3700/1A was eventually nicknamed the “Jumbo” — just like the original Royal Oak that had preceded it, and the similarities didn’t end there. Inside the Nautilus was the same ultra-thin, self-winding movement as the one used in its Genta-designed predecessor: Caliber 28-885, based on the Jaeger-LeCoultre 920, which also ended up inside another of the era’s sport-luxury pioneers, the Vacheron Constantin 222, in 1977. As Audemars Piguet had famously done with the Royal Oak, Patek Philippe leaned into the apparent absurdity of marketing a steel watch at such a high echelon of pricing, with ads that audaciously proclaimed, “One of the world’s costliest watches is made of steel.”

Patek Philippe Nautilus "Midsize" Ref. 3800 (photo: Bonhams)

It would take a little while for this somewhat contrarian marketing strategy to catch on, but Patek Philippe remained committed to the Nautilus while also tweaking the sizes, colorways, and design elements to appeal to a wider audience. The first Nautilus sported the blue-black gradient dial that has since become most closely associated with the model; Patek Philippe followed it up with a white-dialed version in 1978 and added a ladies’ version in 1980, powered by a quartz movement. Even more significant was the launch of the “Midsize” Ref. 3800 model the following year, whose steel case measured 37.5mm in diameter — down from the “Jumbo” 42mm of the parent model — and contained the Caliber 335 SC, an automatic movement made in-house by Patek Philippe, rather than the outsourced, JLC-based movement in its big brother. Aesthetically, what the new movement contributed was a central seconds hand on the navy blue dial, an element missing from the Ref. 3700 models.

The “Midsize” Nautilus proved to be the reference with the most staying power, produced until 2006, possibly because its 37.5mm size appealed to both male and female customers. Accordingly, the model branched out into various colorways and even material executions; within a few years, the “world’s costliest watch in steel,” perhaps inevitably, was also offered in two-tone and all-gold versions. The movement inside also evolved, with the 335 SC caliber getting a quick-set date feature in 1987 and then, in 1992 and eventually also 1997, getting upgraded to Geneva Seal-certified Calibers 330 134 and 330 194, respectively.

The "proto-Aquanaut," Ref. 5060, photo: Monaco Legend Auctions

Shortly before the final movement upgrade in the midsize models, Patek Philippe tested the waters with a new-look Nautilus, the Ref. 5060/SJ, a watch today regarded as the “Proto-Aquanaut,” aka the seed from which the Aquanaut collection sprouted. (I delve more deeply into the Aquanaut in this feature.) Designed to appeal to a more youthful enthusiast, the model had a simpler, three-part case construction than the elaborate two-piece “porthole” design of the core Nautilus series, and it was mounted on a durable composite rubber strap rather than an integrated bracelet, which was more costly and more difficult to manufacture. The bezel was similar to the existing models’,  but eschewed the signature “ears” on each side of the case. Instead of the familiar horizontal wave texture and baton hour markers, the dial of the 5060 model had an embossed checkerboard pattern (which was echoed on the rubber strap) and bold, applied Arabic numerals for a sportier look. The case measured a modest 35.6mm in diameter; beating inside was the automatic Caliber 330 SC. It’s certainly unlikely that anyone present for the launch of this more youthful, allegedly more attainable offspring of the Nautilus would have predicted that it might outlive its parent and become a luxury model to reckon with all on its own.

Patek Philippe Nautilus Ref. 3710, 1998 (Photo: Monaco Legend Auctions)

Outside of a date window, the Nautilus collection had gotten by without additional complications during its first two decades on the market. That began changing in 1998, when Patek Philippe launched the Ref. 3710, which added not only a power-reserve indication on the dial but also dabbled in a new style of hour markers, i.e., applied Roman numerals. In 2005 came an even more complex dial arrangement with Ref. 3712, which squeezed a more elegantly compact power reserve, a small seconds subdial, and an analog date subdial with a moon-phase center onto its blue-black gradient dial. This version of the Nautilus, powered by the self-winding 240 PS IRM C LU caliber, was only produced for one year, making it one of the rarest Nautilus models out there.

Patek Philippe Nautilus Ref. 3712 (photo: Monaco Legend Auctions)

For its 30th anniversary in 2006, in the heart of a watch-industry era defined by big cases and often bigger complications, the Nautilus expanded its repertoire in two directions — going back to basics with the time-only Ref. 5711 and “Midsize” Ref. 5800, and also introducing the first-ever chronograph in the Nautilus family, Ref. 5980, as well as the Ref. 5712, a new generation of the short-lived but impactful Ref. 3712. With the 5711, Patek Philippe had, perhaps unknowingly at the time, unleashed upon the watch-collector community the ultimate hype watch of the 21st Century — and ironically sowed the seeds of that core model’s demise.

Patek Philippe Nautilus Ref. 5711 in steel (photo: Monaco Legend Auctions)

The stainless steel case of the Nautilus 5711 measured 43mm in diameter, 1mm larger than the O.G. 3700 model that had preceded it, and it carried inside that case another in-house movement, the automatic Caliber 315 SC, with a 21,600-vph frequency and a 48-hour power reserve. Design-wise, it was nearly indistinguishable from its ancestor, except for the addition of a central seconds hand to accompany the distinctive baton hour and minute hands and 3 o’clock date window. The "midsize" Ref. 5800 similarly followed the lead of the retired Ref. 3800, though it too was slightly larger, at 38.4mm, up from 37.5mm, and housed the Caliber 330 SC, which is virtually identical to the 315 SC except for a narrower, recessed date display at 3 o'clock. 

Patek Philippe Nautilus Chronograph Ref. 5980 (photo: Bonhams)

The Nautilus Chronograph, in a 40.5mm case, brought its own innovation to the fore, powered by the in-house, automatic Caliber CH 28-520 C, which drives the timekeeping as well as a cleverly designed totalizer for the watch’s built-in stopwatch: both the 60-minute and the 12-hour counters are combined into a single large subdial at 6 o’clock. This emblematic movement, with its column wheel architecture, continues to animate models in the current Patek Philippe collection, including (as you’d expect) the chronograph version of the Aquanaut. And while the Nautilus Chronograph never achieved the white-hot collectibility of the 5711, it has actually outlasted the three-hand model, with precious-metal versions debuting as recently as 2024.

Patek Philippe Nautilus Annual Calendar Ref. 5726 (photo: Monaco Legend Auctions)

Patek Philippe ushered the annual calendar into watchmaking in 1996, and the manufacture finally released a version of the Nautilus with this signature complication in 2010. The original  Ref. 5726 model housed the Caliber 324 S QA LU 24H (by this point, pretty much all of Patek Philippe’s movements were made in-house) inside a 40.5mm stainless steel case. Perhaps emboldened by the success of the Aquanaut, the watch was mounted not on an integrated bracelet but on a leather strap; a bracelet-equipped model followed in 2012. Much like Patek had gone the extra mile with the Nautilus Chronograph’s mono-register design, it overachieved once again with the Annual Calendar, including a moon-phase display in the calendrical repertoire. 

Patek Philippe Nautilus Perpetual Calendar Ref. 5740G

While the basic, steel-cased 5711 barrelled along as a Holy Grail for watch enthusiasts, with Patek struggling to keep production numbers somewhere within shouting distance of the unprecedented demand, more complicated and precious-metal variations arrived to speak to an even more elite subset of consumers. In 2014, Patek unveiled the Travel Time Chronograph (Ref. 5990), equipped with the brand’s signature dual-time function paired with a flyback chronograph. For the Nautilus’ 40th anniversary in 2016, Patek released two limited editions. One was a 700-piece, platinum-cased version of the core 5711 (Ref. 5711/1P), with a slightly larger 44mm size and a blue-black gradient dial made of 18k gold and embossed with a 40th anniversary inscription. The other was a massive (49.25mm), white-gold-cased Flyback Chronograph (Ref. 5976) with a redesigned version of the monocounter with three, rather than the usual two, concentric scales — one for the 12-hour tally, the other two for each 30-minute segment of the elapsed hours (1-30 and 31-60). The pinnacle of haute horlogerie for the Nautilus was achieved in 2018: the Ref. 5740G Perpetual Calendar, whose 40mm white-gold case was exceptionally thin, just 8.42mm, despite the complexity of its movement, the automatic, micro-rotor-driven Caliber 240 Q.

The value trajectory of the Nautilus 5711 in steel, courtesy of Everywatch

While all of these iterations of the Nautilus found success, it was the core, three-handed steel 5711, the purest distillation of Genta’s landmark design from the ‘70s, that became a watch-industry powerhouse and eventually, the closest to a “unicorn” that a watch in serial production could become. Because Patek’s production could not keep up with the enthusiast community’s voracious demand, much of the transactional life of the Nautilus 5711 was driven to the secondary market and to the auction block, where it often sold for many, many times its MSRP. EveryWatch, a leading watch data platform that uses AI analysis tools to track auction performance and value trends for millions of watches over time, reveals that from its introduction in 2006 to its discontinuation in 2021, the Nautilus 5711 experienced an upward trajectory in sales volume and median price value — initially slow and steady but eventually spiking to unprecedented levels. In 2010, the median price of a 5711 in these secondary channels hovered around $19,335; by 2022, it peaked around $147,335. Scarcity was, of course, a factor, as was the surging popularity of luxury sport watches in steel, a genre in which the Nautilus represents the ne plus ultra. All the versions of the 5711 were affected, but none more profoundly than the steel ones: the blue-dialed, stainless steel model (technically the Ref. 5711/1A-010) saw its secondary market value rise by a head-spinning 352% between 2008 and 2024, reaching an average price of $101,760 in 2024 after peaking around $128,986 in 2021-22. Those opting to wait for a new model in the hopes of getting a Nautilus for the list price (an already lofty $33,000+) didn’t fare much better, as waiting lists ballooned to eight years or more.

This special Tiffany-branded edition was limited to 170 pieces.

Thierry Stern, CEO of Patek Philippe, saw an unsustainable financial bubble forming around his company’s white-hot sport-luxury watch and made the difficult decision to discontinue the Nautilus Ref. 5711 in 2021 (after a well-publicized and successful “farewell tour” that included an olive-green-dial model and an ultra-limited edition with a Tiffany blue dial developed in collaboration with the jeweler and longtime Patek retailer). Stern told the Swiss newspaper Neuren Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) that his reasons for the industry-shaking move were several. Always conscious of his family-owned brand’s elite image, which had been built over the years by an emphasis on classical elegance and high complications, Stern was unwilling to devote more than half of its resources to producing a single, uncomplicated steel “sport” watch, even one as profitable as the Nautilus. He also was conscious of diminishing its value through over-production. “It’s not enough to make the most beautiful watches in the world,” Stern told NZZ. “I also have to make sure that they retain their value, and rarity is one of the keys to that. For the customers who invest in Patek, that’s important.” Stern goes on to solidify the company’s determination not to be defined by its (ostensibly) most entry-level model: “I don’t want us to have more than a third steel watches…We had to work very hard to get into the gold and platinum league, and that’s where we should stay.” Here it is worth noting that Patek’s decision to retire its star at the height of its powers is one that is practically unheard of in the watch industry. The Nautilus is often, and inevitably, mentioned in the same breath as its predecessor, the Royal Oak. Imagine, if you would, Audemars Piguet taking that flagship model off the market to focus on the more elegant aspects of its collection.

Girard-Perregaux Laureato

It is fair to conclude, and easy to observe, that the influence of the Patek Philippe Nautilus reaches far and wide throughout the watch industry today, not only in Patek’s still-extant Aquanaut collection but in any number of “integrated sport-luxury” timepieces on the market today. Frankly, few of the principals behind these modern watches (if they’re being honest) would dispute that the Nautilus, and of course, the Royal Oak before it, provided at least some spark of inspiration. Some of these models actually hail from the same 1970s era and returned to the stage in the wake of the Nautilus’s surging 21st Century popularity; these include watches like the Vacheron Constantin Overseas (which actually traces its lineage back to the aforementioned 222), Girard-Perregaux Laureato, Baume & Mercier Riviera, and Tissot PRX. Others have emerged more recently, like the Chopard Alpine Eagle, A. Lange & Söhne Odysseus, Bell & Ross BR 05, and Maurice Lacroix Aikon, to name just a few of the most well-known suspects.

Patek Philippe Cubitus

As for Patek Philippe itself, the company and its leadership are not looking back. The steel-cased Nautilus 5711 is unlikely to make a Michael Jordan-like return from retirement, but branches from the Nautilus tree will continue to emerge to secure the Swiss watchmaker’s hold on the sport-luxury genre that it helped bring into being more than a half-century ago. The Aquanaut, as noted earlier, forges on as a strong and popular family of its own, and special Nautilus editions like 2024’s Nautilus Flyback Chronograph Ref. 5980/60G, in white gold on a somewhat controversial denim strap, continue to draw eyeballs and, undoubtedly, buyers. Speaking of controversy, the most recent continuation of the Nautilus Legacy is the launch, in Fall 2024, of the Patek Philippe Cubitus, which essentially applies many of the Nautilus aesthetic elements to a new, squared case. (My colleague Danny Milton offers insight into the Cubitus, and what its launch means for Patek and the watch industry at large, in this article.) Just shortly after its launch, the Cubitus has met with something other than universal acclaim from the watch enthusiast community, but it’s easy to overlook that the same was true of the Nautilus when it debuted in the Swinging Seventies. Whether or not the new collection is destined to follow anything resembling the meteoric trajectory of its predecessor remains to be seen.