Many of us, myself included, have the 5711 steel Nautilus cemented onto our watch grail wish-list. Now, the infamous eight year waiting-list you’d have to endure after ordering one is no more. Patek Philippe’s top selling reference is being discontinued, and many a collector on an exclusive AD list will return to square one, with the prices of pre-owned pieces skyrocketing (as covered in our recent story here). At first glance, the decision to abandon the 43-year-old Nautilus 5711 looks seriously counterintuitive, But as Entrepreneur.com explains in this story, the move makes sense if you look at it through the glasses of Patek Philippe CEO Thierry Stern. You’d assume the surging popularity of the 5711 in recent years would be a good thing, right? But as one of the brands in the so-called Holy Trinity of Swiss watchmaking, Patek has a legacy to nurture and that means having more than one sports watch of iconic status. As Jason Feifer writes in the article: “The watch had become so popular that its meaning changed. People were flashing it around Instagram as a sign of wealth. Others were surely buying it just to flip it. And it was distracting attention from the…
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