ML - Vegas Magazine

2013 - Issue 1 - Winter

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that should occur will be skipped, so the watch will need an adjustment. "To make it as user-friendly as possible, the mechanism needs only to be advanced by one day in 2100 at the push of a button," says CEO Wilhelm Schmid of A. Lange & Söhne's perpetual calendar watch. "To make sure that the switching of the calendar indications does not affect the rate of accuracy of the movement, we have devised a way to build up the energy for this process over a period of 24 hours. It is all a very complex process." Indeed, perpetual calendar watches house highly complex technical calibers. These movements are composed of date wheels, date-change levers, day wheel, and day-of-the-week lever, as well as an intermediate month wheel with month rack disk and finger that tips the month accordingly at the end to change it to the first of the new month. Some watches also offer year and decade disks, and a moon-phase indicator. The entire labyrinth of disks and levers is linked together, so that every night a switching impulse is transmitted from the main movement of the watch via a tiny lever, pulling on the date-change lever. This impulse causes the date wheel to advance by one position. Simultaneously, the day-of-the-week lever pushes the day wheel, and so on, in turn. The accuracy of A. Lange & "Perpetual calendars contain complications that are intricate in Söhne's Datograph Perpetual both mechanics and design while functioning with simplicity and watch comes thanks to a spring balance with a frequency of ease," says Michael Ryan, Wynn's watch buyer, who names Patek 18,000 semi oscillators per hour. Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Ulysse Nardin's El Breguet, Panerai, and Blancpain as Toro GMT +/top sellers. "They are the most frePerpetual Calendar watch holds quently requested complication several patents. timepieces we offer because they include all of the elements of time: minute, hour, day, date, month, the watch its reputation as extremely user-friendly. leap year, and moon phase." The dial offers a bold, avant-garde display of the mulCertain difficulties arise, of tiple functions. Similarly, A. Lange & Söhne's course, in the making of these Datograph Perpetual watch, which consists of 556 intricate, labyrinthine timepieces parts (including a 48-step perpetual calendar cam), with regard to setting the funccombines a column-wheel chronograph and a fly back tions and readouts of the watch. jumping 30-minute counter function. This watch is Thus, many of today's finest accurately computed to a rate deviation of only one watch brands have created day in 122 years. unique, patented mechanical sysOne of the more coveted and beautiful readouts on tems for setting the dates and the perpetual calendar watch is the moon-phase inditimes, for unusual readouts, for cation, which operates via a small disk integrated into extended time indication, or for the complex movement. As the disk rotates, it reveals added functions such as chronothe proper moon phase for the progressing month graphs, astronomical indicators, through an aperture on the dial. Some watchmakers or multiple time zone indicators. adorn the moon-phase disks in enamel, semi-precious Ulysse Nardin, for instance, stones such as lapis lazuli or onyx, or encrust them in holds several patents on its El Toro GMT +/- Perpetual Calendar, which combines the GMT (Greenwich gemstones for stunning beauty. A handful of brands have developed new Mean Time) function with the perpetual calendar and adjusts both for- moon-phase indicators that depict the moon in both the southern and ward and backward in seconds via the quick-setting corrector on a single northern hemispheres: IWC's Big Pilot's Watch Perpetual Calendar Top crown. Additionally, the hour hand is adjusted instantly with the use of the Gun boasts, in a circular disk at 12 o'clock, a stunning rendition of two + and – pushers when the wearer moves between time zones, which gives moon phases (one for each hemisphere) for dual drama. V Today's perpetual calendar watches are built to track time until March 1, 2100. VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 67 066-067_V_SS_TimeHonored_Win13.indd 67 1/2/13 1:52 PM

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