Chief Justice John Roberts Wears a Patek Philippe Watch at Trump Trial
With nothing going on in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, I had to find a shiny object to draw my attention. And there it was on the wrist of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. It caught my eye as he moved his pen or tilted his glasses.
The Internet, an infallible source of truth, says Chief Justice Roberts is wearing a Patek Philippe 5205G. We’re talking well-equipped SUV money for that time piece, $49,780 according to Patek Philippe’s website. The yearly rate for chief justices nowadays is $267,000, so he can afford it without going total ramen.
It is doubtful his watch keeps better time than anything I can buy online and have slowly shipped from China. It’s not what it does that makes this watch valuable. It’s how it does what it does and the remarkable craftsmanship and engineering involved in doing it.
Roberts’ watch is part of a category known as complications. Complications display more than one concept. The 5205G has an analog clock face, plus day, date and month in apertures (oh, that’s what they’re called) and a moon phase indicator.
The 5205G is a mechanical watch. It needs to be wound, but not by twisting a stem. The 5205G is self winding, meaning every motion stayed, every appeal denied, every bang of the gavel winds the mainspring.
No need to worry that Chief Justice Roberts might go on a signing or gavel banging spree and overwind the watch. Adrien Philippe (same family) patented the design that prevents that in 1863.
A mechanical watch takes the energy stored in a tightened mainspring and slowly parcels it out. Through the use of a balance wheel the flow of the stored energy remains constant even as the mainspring winds down.
The formula to create the wheels and pinions necessary to keep time on a dial with sweeping hands is pretty simple. The lunar cycle, necessary for the moon phase display on Chief Justice Roberts watch, is not.
Most of us would gasp at the thought of a $40k watch. But in the high end world the judge might not be judged too favorably. His watch is far from supreme.
If you’re an up-and-coming judge and like your watches totally over-the-top I recommend commissioning something like the Vacheron Constantin Reference 57260. It has 2826 parts and 31 hands showing 57 complications.
A price has never been revealed but rumors put the cost around $10,000,000. The official reason I’m not getting one, however, is it weighs two pounds and two ounces. My left arm is fine at its current length.
Geoff Fox is a seven time Emmy Award winning meteorologist. Writer of software and prose.
