Today, November 13th, 2024, IWC has been awarded the Aiguille d’Or Grand Prix at the 2024 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève —GPHG— for the new Portugieser Eternal Calendar. One of the most impressive and horologically advanced timepieces presented at Watches & Wonders 2024. This watch pushes the boundaries of horology with a secular perpetual calendar. In addition to recognizing the different lengths of the months and adding a leap day every four years, the IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar also takes into account the Gregorian calendar’s complex leap-year exception rules. A newly engineered 400-year gear ensures that the calendar automatically skips three leap years over four centuries —an event that will occur for the first time in the year 2100. The watch is accurate until the year 3999.
The Portugieser Eternal Calendar is based on the same modular and synchronized design as the existing perpetual calendar. All its displays can be advanced using the crown. However, while the perpetual calendar is programmed for a four-year cycle, the Portugieser Eternal Calendar features an additional mechanism.
Another key feature of this watch is the extremely precise moon phase display. Thanks to a newly developed reduction gear, the Double Moon phase display will only deviate from the moon’s orbit by one day after 45 million years. The Portugieser Eternal Calendar features an intricately finished platinum case measuring 44.4 mm in diameter, a sapphire crystal dial, and double box-glass sapphire crystals in the front and the back, and is delivered on a black alligator leather strap from Santoni.
Every four years at the end of February, a new module informs the calendar about whether the leap year takes place or not. This so-called 400-year gear completes only one revolution every four centuries. It contains three indentations, which cause the calendar to skip three leap years over that period. This module is designed with impressive efficiency and technical elegance and consists of only eight parts, underscoring IWC Schaffhausen’s engineering approach to fine watchmaking.
