A watch for all time

A PERPETUAL CALENDAR WATCH made by IWC Schaff hausen is set till 2499 – nearly 500 years, or more than a few lifetimes.

If adjusted today, its display of the date, day of the week, month, moon phase and year in four digits will continue to run perfectly with virtually no corrections for the next 478 years (2499 minus 2021).

Take the latest IWC perpetual calendar, the Portugieser Perpetual Calendar 42 which comes in both a stainless steel and 5N gold case. According to the brand, its “mechanical programme independently recognises the diff erent lengths of the months and adds an extra day at the end of February every four years”.

All the displays are perfectly in tune with each other and can be adjusted simply via the crown. The date, month and day of the week are showcased on three sub-dials at three, six and nine o’clock.

The perpetual moon phase, also shown in the month display, deviates from the actual orbit of the moon by only one day after 577.5 years. An indicator in the week-day display counts the years till the next leap year.

The new Portugieser perpetual calendar is also available in two boutique editions. One, in 5N gold, is similar to the non-boutique models but features a blue dial. The other has a larger 44mm case in Armor gold – and the date, day, month and moon phase are shown on four sub-dials.

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There’s also a four-digit year, small seconds and a power reserve display in the second version. The IWC perpetual calendar fi rst appeared in the Portugieser collection in 2003. In the latest Portugieser model, the complication is for the fi rst time integrated with an IWC in-house movement.

The perpetual calendar is the answer to a challenge that’s been bugging generations of watch-makers, who have worked tirelessly to develop a mechanical calendar that can count the months of various lengths as well as add a leap day every four years.

The fi rst such mechanisms that started to appear in wrist watches around 1930 were either unique pieces or produced in very small series. They were also complicated to operate as each display had to be set separately.

Nagged by such imperfections, IWC’s chief watch-maker Kurt Klaus in the 1980s started to develop under the code name “Operation Eternity” a mechanical perpetual calendar that has set new standards in terms of engineering, practicality and operation.

The perpetual calendar developed by Klaus, who is into his 64th year in IWC, is basically an integration of the date mechanism into the basic movement as a source of power, which at night would activate an entire gear chain and advance all the displays at once. The perpetual calendar, which is still regarded as a milestone in the art of watchmaking, made its debut in a IWC Da Vinci model in 1985 at the Basel watch fair. Its most striking new feature is that all its displays can be synchronised by hand. If the watch has been left idle, the calendar can be advanced simply by turning the crown

No other perpetual calendar in history has been so easy to operate. And for the fi rst time ever, a perpetual calendar came with a four-digit year display. Another feature was the precise moon phase display, which only needed manual adjustment after 122 years.

IWC’s engineers have continued to enhance the original mechanism – and it has appeared in a number of iconic IWC timepieces. A digital display for the date and month is found in the IWC Aquatimer Perpetual Calendar Digital Date- Month Edition “50 Years Aquatimer” and the IWC Ingenieur Perpetual Calendar Digital Date-Moon.

A double-moon complication that allows for a view of the moon from both the northern and southern hemisphere is featured in past models of the Portugieser Perpetual Calendar.

Prices: S$47,800 (Portugieser Perpetual Calendar Boutique Edition 44mm (W344205), S$32,700 (Portugieser Perpetual Calendar 42mm steel (IW344203), S$47,800 (Portugieser Perpetual Calendar 42mm gold (IW344202).