The Gondolo line is named for a Brazilian retailer who Patek worked with for several decades starting in the 1872. In the modern era the line is known for rectangular and tonneau shaped watches.

Diameter: 33.2mm

Lug-to-lug: 42.3mm

Thickness: 7.8mm

Lug width is: 22mm

The watch has 30 meters of water resistance.

The watch case is 18kt yellow gold and features a lot of polished surface area. The watch itself leans heavily into art deco design choices, from the railroad chapter ring on the edge of the dial to the stepped flanks of the case. The dial color is opaline and features applied, aggressively shaped gold hour markers with an Arabic 12 at the top of the watch. The dauphin hands are also gold as is the border of the small second dial. The watch dial is protected by a sapphire crystal. The watch crown controls everything in two positions. In position 0 the watch can be wound. In position 1 the watch’s time can be set.

The watch has a quick release brown gator strap with a simple, yellow gold tang buckle.

The watch does have a display caseback showing off the in-house 65-21 REC PS movement. The REC indicates the movement is rectangular, or shaped to correspond with the shape of this watch. This movement is hand-wind only and does not feature hacking. The watch has 18 jewels, beats at 4 Hz, and offers approximately 44 hours of power reserve. This movement has the Patek Philippe seal. The movement uses a free-sprung escapement. There is Côtes de Genève decoration applied to the top of the bridges, polished anglage on the edge of every bridge, and black-polished screws appear throughout. The click, the crown wheel, and the ratchet wheel are brushed and thus provide a nice contrast to the bridges. 

Putting this watch on my timegrapher, I get an average across all six positions of 0 seconds per day. The range of readings were -4 seconds per day to +4 seconds per day.

My overall thoughts:

The positives:

• Attractive dial configuration in an art deco package

• Case is extremely comfortable on wrist

• Shaped movement

The negatives:

• Not the most comfortable hand-winding experience

I don’t have much in the way of complaints. The only thing that really is disappointing is I was hoping for a more enjoyable hand-wind experience on the movement. Something akin to the JLC Reverso. This turns smooth but given the crown design it does cut in a bit into the fingers. The more I’ve used it the better I’ve adapted to how to handle it, versus an IWC Portuguese I once had which was a downright painful hand-wind movement. But, I don’t get that visceral satisfaction that I really appreciate on hand-wind watches.

Otherwise though, it is a great watch from what I feel is an often overlooked model line. It definitely wasn’t on my radar until recently. Thanks to the curve of the case I find this wears more comfortably than my experience with the JLC Reverso, which is far from an uncomfortable watch. But this just wears notably better on my wrist. The art deco aesthetic I think is well suited to rectangular watch designs and Patek’s execution of it on this reference is extremely clean. I also award bonus points to them using a shaped movement which adds to the overall presentation given the display caseback, something they couldn’t even be bothered to do with the new Cubitus line-up on launch. Overall, even though the watch is quite understated, I feel you can really see the effort that was applied to refine what is at its core a very basic design.