IWC Il Destriero Scafusia Grand Complication

Owning a Grand Complication is the horological equivalent of summiting Mount Everest - you can’t go higher. Such is the case with this massive platinum Grand Complication wristwatch from the International Watch Company. The Il Destriero Scafusia offers minutes repitition, tourbillon, perpetual calendar with moonphase and split seconds rattrapante chronograph. The calendar even offers a four digit year display for millinium, century, decade and year. I’ll warn you in advance about the dilemma you will face with this watch: to wear it dial side up or movement side up… the movement in this watch is unbelievably complex and absolutely seductive.

IWC Grande Complication

A total of 659 mechanical parts, 71 of them jewels, twelve patents and 21 functions and displays, including a perpetual calendar for the next 500 years, together with a perpetual moon phase display made of polished goldstone representing a star-studded night sky. Working inside the case are a chronograph and a highly complex minute repeater with an all-or-nothing piece slide. This wonderful invention chimes the time out the time in crystal-clear tones which are activated by the slide on the left-hand side on the case. Two tiny, precision-made hammers are released and chime the time in hours, quarters and minutes on two gongs. Developing the striking mechanism was a technical tour de force. Initially, the chimes were inaudible outside the solid platinum case, so the glass was freely suspended on a platinum membrane to enable it to amplify the vibrations produced by the gongs via the sound transmission pin. The case, too, finished in solid platinum with a fineness of 95 percent or 18 ct. yellow gold, is first class. Despite the complex design of the case, the Grande Complication is unaffected by superficial water splashes.

IWC Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar Kurt Klaus Edition

IWC owes a great deal to Kurt Klaus. After all, he was successful throughout his fifty years with the company and for the past six years has continued to devote much of his time as a developer and inventor. It is precisely for this reason, as IWC opens up a new chapter in the history of the Da Vinci family, that it has decided to pay a tribute to its inventor: the limited Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar Special Edition Kurt Klaus. It contains the original automatic calendar/ chronograph movement used since 1985, except that it is now housed in the new Da Vinci tonneau-shaped style case measuring 43.1 x 51 millimetres. The features and dimensions are the same as those of the new Da Vinci Chronograph, the first Da Vinci in this new generation. The strictly limited edition of this model dedicated to Kurt Klaus consists of 50 watches in platinum and 500 in 18 ct. rose gold. Apart from the familiar date, day, month, four-digit year and perpetual moon phase displays, each of the watches bears Kurt Klaus’s signature in the bottom right-hand corner of the dial and a relief engraving of the designer on the back cover. It would be difficult to make the transition from one model to another more elegantly: a farewell as a new beginning.

IWC Pilot’s Spitfire UTC

Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) is an international time standard that is identical with Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). In an increasingly globalized world, it provides a time constant. It is immensely important to pilots and travellers who change continents and time zones in rapid succession, or for business people who communicate with associates all over the world. In the late 1990s, especially for them, IWC began making a reliable wristwatch with two time zones: the Pilot’s Watch UTC with its 24-hour display. On the Spitfire UTC, local time is shown on the dial. This can be advanced or moved back in one-hour steps, even beyond the date. Home time (or UTC) is displayed in a 24-hour display window.

IWC Pilot’s Watch Automatic Edition Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Antoine de Saint Exupéry published his novel “Courrier Sud” (Southern Mail) in Paris in 1929. In it, he reflected, among other things, on what was perhaps the happiest time of his life: in Strasbourg and Le Bourget. The Pilot’s Watch Automatic Edition Antoine de Saint Exupéry from IWC reminds us of this significant period in the life of Saint Exupéry through its case back relief engraving. Colourful and artistic, it harks back to the original Saint Exupéry watch edition, but now has a power reserve display and a date display that is reminiscent of an altimeter. The limited edition of just 1929 copies provides another historical connection to “Courrier Sud”: 1178 watches in stainless steel, 500 in 18 carat rose gold, 250 in 18 carat white gold and just one in platinum - this will be auctioned off later with proceeds going to a good cause.