Celebrating the Leap Year with the Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar
Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar - Credit Glashütte Original
There are few watch complications as elaborate and coveted as the perpetual calendar, but really, the ingenuity behind the mechanism is only put to the test once every four years, on a leap year. Since today marks the 29th February, we thought what better day to celebrate the complication and bring to light one of the most beautiful interpretations of it, the Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar watch.
What is a Perpetual Calendar Watch?
Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar - Credit Glashütte Original
Quickly, before we get into the beauty of the Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar watch, we should probably first explain what a perpetual calendar watch is, just in case you’re unfamiliar with this fascinating mechanism.
A perpetual calendar watch is a timepiece that tracks the conventional hours, minutes and seconds alongside the date, day, month and years. It not only automatically accounts for the different lengths of the month and but even adds a day in February when it’s a leap year. As long as you keep the mechanical movement running, there is never a need to make manual adjustments to the watch.
Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar
Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar - Credit Glashütte Original
The Glashütte Original Senator Excellence collection was first released in 2016, making a home for an astonishing array of precise movements and complications. One of the most technologically advanced is their Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar watch which presents the weekday, date, month, annual cycle and moonphase on five separate discs around the circumference on the dial. It’s not easy to make a perpetual calendar watch uncluttered and elegant, but Glashütte Original has most definitely done it.
Powering the perpetual calendar complication is the Glashütte Original calibre 36-12, an automatic movement with a 4Hz frequency, a comfortable 100h power reserve, an anti-magnetic silicon hairspring and a swan-neck fine-adjustment system. Even if you were to let the 100-hour power reserve run out on your Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar watch, resetting the perpetual calendar is made easy as the weekday, date and month are simultaneously amendable using the universal corrector.
Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar - Credit Glashütte Original
Two of the newest editions of the Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar watch arrive in stainless steel with a galvanic grey, finely-grained dial or 18ct rose gold with a lighter galvanic silver fine-grained display. The Roman numerals and hour and minute hands of the latter match the case in rose gold while the stainless steel reference elects blue coated hardware including blue backdrops for the date, day and month.
Both Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar watches measure to 42mm wide and 12.8mm tall with brushed and polished finishing, sapphire crystal glass on both sides and 50 metre water resistant ratings. The solid gold model arrives with dark brown alligator strap while the steel version can be ordered on either a blue fabric strap or a stainless steel bracelet.
Celebrate the leap year in style with the Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar watches, now available for £32,200 in gold and £20,500 in steel.
Technical Specifications:
- Brand: Glashütte Original
- Model: Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar
- Price: £20,500 (steel), £32,200 (gold)
- Material: Stainless steel or 18ct rose gold
- Movement: Calibre 36-12, automatic winding
- Complications: Hours, minutes, seconds, day, date, month, annual cycle, moonphase
- Dial: Galvanic silver or grey
- Size: 42mm wide, 12.8mm tall
- When the reviewer would personally wear it: I wouldn’t need any excuse to wear the rose gold model to a formal event. You’ve got to wear it on a leap year too, since it’s the only time you’ll get to see the display read both “FEB” and “29” at the same time.
- A friend we’d recommend it to first: A lover of haute-horlogerie complications.
- Best characteristics of the watch: The uncluttered nature of the dial, despite the mass of complications on display.
- The worst characteristics of the watch: Sadly, these are going to be out of most people’s price range.
