The Glashütte Original Senator Moon Phase Skeletonized

Ah hah – just when I thought that this season’s skeletonised timepieces couldn’t get better, Glashütte Original take their previously released 1845 classic Up/Down model, have some of their best hand-engravers work some labyrinthine magic on it … and hey presto – a new timepiece is born … the sublimely exquisite Glashütte Original Senator Moon Phase Skeletonised edition.

Skeletonised timepieces are an artform in miniature, requiring hours, days and weeks of meticulous and fastidious handworking.  This latest piece from Glashütte Original joins an illustrious selection.  In recent times we've reviewed the beautiful and intricate Blancpain Villeret Squelette 8 Jours, also presented in a rounded and trim-bezeled case – a timepiece bereft of everything except for its logo and hands and we’ve also featured the slender but substantial Piaget Altiplano Skeleton Ultra-Thin, the world’s thinnest self-winding skeletonised watch and an astounding achievement.   This Glashütte Original piece retains a diminutive dial edge allowing for a fine track and numerals and one which gives a delicate foothold for its indications – the power reserve, the small seconds and the excellent moon phase.

 The intrinsic are just as admirable as the extrinsic  the back is as visually outstanding as the front.  A 42mm red gold case provides the frame and inside is the GO manufacture Calibre 49-13 with 40 hours of power reserve.

The Glashütte Original Senator Moon Phase Skeletonised edition will be a limited release of 100 pieces.

IWC Aquatimer Chronograph Jacques Cousteau 100th Anniversary Edition

Continuing the successful Jacques Cousteau editions of it’s superb Aquatimer model, IWC have lifted the covers from the fifth edition  to take it’s place among the range.
The IWC Aquatimer model has been a real grower on me over recent years, particularly the Cousteau editions, and in it’s latest guise, I think it just looks better than ever!

IWC Aquatimer Chronograph Jacques Cousteau 100th Anniversary Edition
This edition stands out from previous releases in that it marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the legendary French underwater explorer on June 11 and this is commemorated on the watch’s caseback with the engraved bust of Cousteau above the 1910 – 2010 centenial tribute.

IWC Aquatimer Chronograph Jacques Cousteau 100th Anniversary Edition
As a diver’s watch it features stout luminous steel hands and applied hour markers set against the graphite grey coloured dial, a stainless steel rotating bezel with ceramic numerals ring and rubber-clad crown, all on a 44mm x 15mm stainless steel case, so it has all the features and will also withstand depths of 120m.
The recessed chrono subdials, being the same deep dark blue as the centering arrow on the bezel, really set off the effect of the watch and beneath the day and date windows is the Jacques Cousteau signature. It all sits on a natural black rubber strap with tang buckle.

The IWC Aquatimer Chronograph Jacques Cousteau Edition 2010 is powered by the IWC Calibre 79320 automatic movement.

IWC Ingenieur Double Chronograph Titanium

If you like IWC’s Ingenieur collection then you will want this one on your wrist.  The Ingenieur has always been unpretentious, technical, usable.   The latest piece which is constructed from titanium means that the chunky 45mm case is even comfortable, not an essential requirement when a watch looks this good.

Instantly recognisable as an Ingenieur, the changes are subtle but effective.  Those five screw heads on the bezel are DLC coated and the crown and pushers are coated with grippy black rubber.  The blue-on-black touches on the dial give the design a slight revamp but the refinements are harmonious, this is an IWC after all.

Bringing added kudos to the Ingenieur for the first time is the addition of a rattrapante or split-seconds timer, notoriously difficult to construct and integrate into a movement but one which is extremely useful and highly addictive.  You will search for and find two entities to time at least once per day – children around the world often get fitter while running laps around the garden so Daddy can fiddle with his new rattrapante timepiece.

Inside the Ingenieur Double Chronograph Titanium is the Calibre 79230 with a power reserve of 44 hours and the piece comes presented on an integrated black rubber strap.

The IWC Pilot’s Watch Chronograph TOP GUN Miramar

Not everyone likes the fussiness of a decorated watch dial.  For some there’s nothing quite like the plain high-legibility of a classic Pilot’s watch.  IWC are more than accomplished in the creation of clean-cut aviation pieces – I know of no man who would not gain an extra swagger if he had one of their Pilot’s Chronos strapped to his wrist.

This one has the added bravado of IWC’s in-house Calibre 89365 with a flyback function and a mighty 168 hours of power reserve.  Maybe you’re more familiar with a pilot’s watch with a big black face and white numerals?  This one has a sharp combination of a matt anthracite dial with covert colours for the hands and chapter ring.  The case measures 48mm across (… great, the more the better when a watch looks this good …) and is made from anti-scratch grey ceramic.  A military-styled textile strap completes the utilitarian styling.

The IWC Pilot’s Watch Chronograph TOP GUN Miramar will form part of the brands new releases to be presented a SIHH 2012.

The IWC Portofino Chronograph Edition Laureus Sport for Good Foundation

This is the IWC Portofino Chronograph Edition Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, the sixth piece released by the Schaffhausen-based brand in honour of the Laureus Foundation.  A few details distinguish these special editions – they have magnificent blue dials, a colour symbolic of hope and each edition also features some rather unique case back engravings.  This is eye-pleasing philanthropy at its finest.

IWC are global partners for the organisation which reaches out to underprivileged children and young people through 90 projects worldwide and the annual release of the Laureus watches raises not only funds, but also awareness for the charity and its on-going work in the most challenging parts of the globe.

The spirit of both the Laureus Foundation and those who it seeks to assist is evident not so much in the perfection achieved by IWC’s dial design, but by what is going on on the back of the piece.  Each year a drawing competition is held among the children who take part in the  projects, and the case back of the Laureus watch features an engraving of the winning entry, a recreation which works suprisingly well.  This year’s picture was drawn by 7 year old Kumara Wadu Parami Apsara, from Sri Lanka who was born just one month before the tsunami changed her homeland forever.

The IWC Portofino Chronograph Edition Laureus Sport for Good Foundation watch features a 42mm steel case and inside is the IWC automatic chronograph Calibre 79320 with 44 hours of power reserve.  The piece will be a limited edition of 2500.

The IWC Spitfire Perpetual Calendar Digital Date-Month – KERS System As Standard.

New for 2012 is the IWC Spitfire Perpetual Calendar Digital Date-Month.  You may be familiar with the IWC Top Gun Collection, in honour of the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School – techy and exciting stuff.  Now IWC produce a piece at the other end of the aeronautical scale – a tribute to the iconic Spitfire, the plane described by those who flew her as the “closest to perfection, ever”.

The piece will be IWC’s first Pilot’s Watch to feature a perpetual calendar, digital date and a stopwatch display.  A Perpetual Calendar takes into account the variation of the days in each month, and also leap years using a marvellous mechanical memory comprising of several hundreds of parts which quite literally count 1,461 days – or four years.  On this piece the leap year is indicated in a small aperture at 6 0′clock.

The IWC Calibre 89800 inside has a few functional innovations – in order that the complex disc system required to advance the three digital displays does not drain the power or effect the amplitude, a power-saving mode kicks in, storing up energy released as each nightly date change occurs, power which will be used when the system is under most strain, at the end of each month and year – think of it as a horological KERS system.  A trick feature, but then IWC have been pioneers of digital displays for more than 100 years.

On the sun-burst slate dial everything is neat, legible, functional and balanced.  Another innovation, the stopwatch function which times the seconds using the central chronograph hand, has its hours and minutes displayed on a totalizer at 12 o’clock, and it is a flyback chronograph enabling a quick reset to zero – features which combine to produce ultra fast/read at a glance usefulness, features which lead IWC to describe this piece as a “watch-within-a-watch”.  Quite.

The automatic Calibre 89800 produces a more than generous power reserve of 68 hours and has a unique winding rotor in the shape of a Spitfire, which can be viewed through the sapphire crystal caseback.   Housed in an 18 carat red gold 46mm case, the IWC Spitfire Perpetual Calendar Digital Date-Month comes presented on a brown alligator leather strap.

IWC Big Pilot’s Watch Edition DFB

Hot on the heels of the one-of-a-kind IWC Big Pilot’s Watch Muhammad Ali Edition comes another re-styled edition of their acclaimed aviation timepiece, the IWC Big Pilot’s Watch Edition DFB which although a limited edition, will be produced in a much more attainable issue of 250 pieces.  “DFB” is the German Football Association which means that this piece will be part of the National Team’s kit when they take part in the EURO 2012 Championship.

In tribute to the team’s colors  the piece features black indices, and flashes of red on the small seconds hand and on the power reserve indicator, all of which tones in rather nicely with the rhodium-plated sun-ray finished dial.  The stainless steel case measures a conspicuous 46 mm across with convex sapphire on the front and a solid case back with special edition engraving on the back.

Inside is the automatic Calibre 51011, producing a full 7 days of power reserve from its Pellaton Winding System which has been in use since 1946 and is named in honour of its creator, Albert Pellaton.

This is the third timepiece which IWC have developed in partnership with the Deutscher Fußball-Bund and like the previous editions, some of the proceeds from the sale of each piece will help support the Laureus Sport For Good Foundation projects in Germany.