He’s one of the most successful musicians on the planet, but Ed Sheeran is refreshingly drama-free. He’s a pretty low-key bloke… Except when it comes to what he puts on his wrist.
The 31-year-old singer/songwriter – who has a net worth upwards of US$200 million and ranks as one of the most successful music artists of all time – has a particularly refined taste in timepieces. Indeed, he’s arguably one of the most discerning celebrity watch collectors on the planet.
While he has a few pieces in his collection that are typical ‘new money’ fare, such as Audemars Piguet Royal Oaks and Richard Milles, he’s also got some proper aficionado pieces, such as an A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk and a vintage Rolex Cosmograph Daytona “Paul Newman“… But there’s one watchmaker that dominates his collection: Patek Philippe.
Ed owns literally dozens of Pateks, most of which aren’t Nautiluses (like most celebrity Pateks) but are from Patek’s more old-school Calatrava and Complications collections. And now he’s added yet another to his collection: a World Time (ref. 5230P/001).
The ref. 5230, first introduced in 2016, harks back to the iconic Patek Philippe World Time watches of the 1930s. If there’s one complication that Patek is known for more than any other, it’s probably world timers. They just scream ‘old money’ and class – it’s also the perfect complication for a globe-trotting rock star like Ed Sheeran.
Ed’s watch specifically is crafted from platinum, features a hand-guilloched blue dial and is mounted on a blue calfskin strap. Ultra-legible and rather understated, it boasts two city and 24-hour rotating disks, which allow the wearer to keep simultaneous and permanent track of the time in all 24 time zones.
It’s powered by the ultra-thin self-winding Calibre 240 HU, which features an ingenious mechanism where the user can simultaneously correct all the world time displays on the watch in one-hour increments by simply pressing the pusher at 10 o’clock.
Ed’s just unveiled a mammoth North American tour for 2023, which will see play in 20 cities across Canada and the United States from May to September. Presale has already been exhausted, but the general sale starts this Friday.
Read Next