This year’s palette of new Portuguese watches includes cosmetic changes, new colors and one spectacular model with the most accurate perpetual calendar in the history of watchmaking.
For the Replica IWC factory located in Schaffhausen, the Portugieser collection (formerly called Portuguese) is of particular importance. The brand, which was asked to create a wrist version of a marine chronometer, designed a watch, huge for its time and classic in form, with a manually wound mechanism with chronometric properties. And it was with him that a key stage in the history of IWC began. Nowadays, the “Portuguese” is still one of the pillars of the manufacture, and on the occasion of Watches & Wonders 2024, it underwent another metamorphosis. Not just any one, because although it may seem that the facelift only affected the colors, it is much more significant. In addition, IWC has added an absolutely unique model to the line, with record-breakingly precise indications of the phases of the Moon.
Eternal Calendar
To the so-called The four Great Complications include the rattrapante chronograph, minute repeater, tourbillon and perpetual calendar. The latter is a form of mechanical calendar that automatically takes into account the differences in the length of individual months of the year and the difference that occurs in leap years. However, this was not enough for IWC, especially since its collection already includes quite good quality Perpetual. So Portugieser Eternal Calendar was created.
First of all, this fully mechanical timepiece (you won’t find an ounce of electronics in it) has a calendar that can recognize leap years not only every odd year, but also when an exception to the rule occurs. The first one takes place in the year 2100 and will happen three times in total over the course of four centuries. The Eternal Calendar will therefore be accurate (at least) until the year 3999. The module responsible for the complication has been equipped with an additional element that makes one full revolution once every 400 years, thus informing the entire mechanism whether it is a leap year or not.
If that wasn’t enough, the precision of indicating the phases of the Moon is even further advanced. Thanks to the new reduction gear, the Moon displayed by the watch mechanism (for the northern and southern hemispheres simultaneously) will record a deviation one day after 45,000,000 years. Yes – that’s exactly 45 million years of precision that IWC intends to enter the Guinness Book of Records.
All this mechanical complexity – undoubtedly impressive from a purely mathematical point of view – is contained in the automatically wound caliber 52640. The Pellaton winding (with a rotor that loads the spring by turning in both directions) guarantees the movement a full 7 days of power reserve. Additionally, it is quite nicely finished, and the details can be freely viewed through the wide sapphire glass on the back.
The case of the IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar is made of platinum. It measures 44.4 mm in diameter and 15 mm in thickness, along with a strongly convex sapphire glass. The dial is a combination of sapphire glass discs and a silver base. The individual indications are harmoniously arranged on it, as well as the place for the o’clock. 6, reserving for the three-dimensional composition of the two disks of the moon. The lower one, with two blue silhouettes of the Earth’s satellite, is made of guilloche titanium. In the cutout at At 4:30 you can see the mentioned element of the calendar mechanism, making a complete revolution once every 400 years. On the other side there is a window with the current year.
