The Beatles’ Watch Collection of Rolex, Patek Philippe, & More

Christian reviews John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s watches.

June 03, 2020

First up, we have John Lennon, who is known pretty exclusively for just one watch. It just so happens that that one watch is an incredible Patek Philippe 2499, a second generation Perpetual Calendar Chronograph in yellow gold. He was gifted the watch by Yoko Ono for his 40th birthday, mere months before he was tragically shot and killed outside his home in NYC.

Next up is Paul McCartney, who like his brother in song John, is really only known for one watch — a Patek Philippe 5167A, the Aquanaut in steel. Paul wears his on a rubber strap, the standard Aquanaut execution, but it has become synonymous with Maca in the watch world. It does, of course, raise a question: Is Paul a watch guy? The Aquanaut is really the perfect one watch collection, and it’s a refined yet wearable timepiece from a top tier brand, so there’s no reason to assume he’s actually a watch geek beyond the time and effort it may have taken him to choose the Aquanaut.

Onto George, whose watch is perhaps the most interesting one to discuss, and it’s the Cartier Baignoire. This is easily one of Cartier’s most underrated watches, a funky, ovular cased timepiece with many of the signature Cartier design elements we’ve come to expect. It’s still a fixture of the Cartier line up to this day, and I don’t see it going anywhere any time soon.

Finally, we have Ringo Starr, and for the first time on this list we actually have two watches to discuss. First is one of the all-time greats, a Patek Philippe 3448, the brand’s first serially produced automatic perpetual calendar, seen on his wrist in yellow gold. It went up for auction, alongside his second watch here, an Omega digital watch from 1970, which was a gift from Keith Moon, drummer for The Who.