Watch Paparazzi

Entrepreneur Emma Marcegaglia spotted wearing Patek Philippe

Emma Marcegaglia, one of Italy's most prominent business leaders, was recently spotted wearing a vintage Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar ref. 3940J in yellow gold with a silver dial — a watch that needs no introduction in serious collector circles but rewards closer examination at every level.

Introduced in 1985, the Patek Philippe ref. 3940 represented a decisive step forward in compact perpetual calendar design. At just 9.65 mm thick, it was among the slimmest self-winding perpetual calendars available at the time, thanks to the ultra-thin calibre 240 Q — a movement built on the celebrated 240 base, itself only 2.53 mm in height, fitted with a peripheral 22-carat gold micro-rotor that winds without obscuring the movement architecture. The perpetual calendar module tracks day, date, month and leap year through a classic Patek aperture display, with a moonphase subdial at 6 o'clock. Case diameter sits at 36 mm, a proportion that reads as refined rather than modest on the wrist.

The 3940J — the yellow gold variant — is the most historically significant of the reference's metal configurations. Produced continuously until 2007, when Patek Philippe replaced it with the thinner, slightly larger ref. 5140, the 3940 in all its guises reached an estimated 7,000 examples. That figure sounds substantial until you consider a production span exceeding two decades and a global collector base hungry for Geneva's perpetual calendar pedigree. Silver-dialled examples in yellow gold carry particular warmth and period authenticity, aligning the watch firmly with late 20th-century Geneva watchmaking at its most considered.

For collectors, the ref. 3940J occupies a well-defined position: it is the accessible entry point into vintage Patek perpetual calendars, less stratospheric in price than the ref. 3450 or the ultra-rare early perpetuals, yet offering genuine mechanical substance and the full Patek provenance. Condition, dial originality and service history drive value more sharply here than almost anywhere else in the segment.

Marcegaglia's choice of the 3940J is telling. As chairwoman of ENI and a former president of Confindustria — Italy's main employers' federation — she operates at the intersection of industrial capital and institutional authority. A vintage Patek Philippe perpetual calendar in yellow gold is not a statement watch; it is the opposite. It signals longevity, substance and a preference for objects that outlast trends, values that map cleanly onto her professional biography. On the grey market, clean examples of the ref. 3940J in yellow gold currently trade in the $25,000–$35,000 range depending on condition and completeness of papers.