Okay, so, I’ve been wanting to get my hands on a Patek Philippe Nautilus 5726 for a while now. You know, the one with the annual calendar? Yeah, that’s the one. I finally decided to go for it and remake one myself, since, you know, they are kinda pricey.
First things first, I did some digging around to see what’s up with this watch. I found out that Patek Philippe stopped making the black dial 5726/1A-001 and the white dial 5726/1A-010 with the steel bracelets. Now, they’re all about the blue dial 5726/1A-014. I also noticed the 5811 model, which has this bigger 41mm case, pretty cool.
Next, I started looking for prices. Man, these things are expensive! I checked out some website, and they were listing them for like, $79K, $89K, all the way up to $110K. Crazy, right? Some places even had free shipping, which is nice, I guess, but still… that’s a lot of dough.
The Hunt Begins
So, I started my quest to find a way to make this dream a reality without breaking the bank. I looked at pre-owned options, you know, used watches. Bob’s Watches had some, but even those were still pretty pricey. Some other place called Luxury Watches USA had a bunch of 5726 models, with steel and leather bracelets. Still, the cost was a bit too much for me.
Getting Down to Business
After seeing all these prices, I decided, forget it, I’m going to try and remake this thing myself. I mean, how hard could it be, right? (Famous last words, I know.) I watched some videos of people talking about the watch’s performance, like this Aaron Voyles guy at Wristcheck Index. I looked at the details of the watch, like the blue dial and the white gold case, to figure out what I was going to do.
Putting It All Together
I started gathering materials that looked like the real deal. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you. Finding the right shade of blue for the dial was a pain. And don’t even get me started on the case. I ended up using some different metals and trying to shape them to look like the Nautilus case. It was a lot of trial and error, lots of it.
The Final Product
After a lot of work, a lot of sweat, and maybe a few tears, I finally finished my homemade Patek Philippe Nautilus 5726. It’s not perfect, obviously. It doesn’t have all the fancy functions of the real one, and it’s definitely not made of white gold. But, you know what? It looks pretty darn good. And it’s mine. I made it. And that’s something.
Would I recommend doing this? Probably not. It was a headache. But, it was also kind of fun, in a weird, masochistic way. And now I have a watch that looks kind of like a Patek Philippe 5726, without having to sell a kidney to get it. So, yeah, I’d say it was worth it. Maybe. We’ll see how long it lasts.
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