Right On Schedule: Excellent Perpetual Calendars Released in 2019
The perpetual calendar complication has been around for several centuries and it is still going strong. In fact, most of the best luxury watch brands have perpetual calendar watches within their current collections and continuously offer new iterations. It’s easy to see the appeal of perpetual calendar timepieces; not only are they high-complication watches that flaunt the mechanical mastery of brands that make them but they also offer real-life practicality. They may be a little tricky to set in the beginning, but once a perpetual calendar is calibrated correctly, it will continue to display the correct time and calendar indications throughout our lifetime—no upgrades, downloads, or plugins necessary! Here are four of our favorite perpetual calendars released in 2019.
Montblanc Heritage Perpetual Calendar
One of the highlights of SIHH 2019, the Montblanc Heritage Perpetual Calendar runs on a proprietary movement made exclusively for Montblanc. Thanks to that automatic movement, the 40mm watch—available in stainless steel or rose gold limited to 100 pieces—houses a balanced dial that indicates the day, date, month, moon phase and leap year via three subdials. What’ more, the watch also boasts two time zones, with the second time zone displayed via a skeletonized GMT hand, complete with an AM/PM indicator tucked into the register at 9 o’clock. As its name suggests, the Montblanc Heritage Perpetual Calendar is vintage-inspired, fitted with design details such as a domed dial, “box-type” sapphire crystal, and retro logo.
A. Lange & Söhne Langematik Perpetual Honeygold
A new iteration of a Lange classic, meet the A. Lange & Söhne Langematik Perpetual in Honeygold. The watch is crafted from the company’s proprietary gold alloy reserved for special models; and this particular Honeygold Langematik Perpetual is limited to just 100 pieces. The watch measures 38.5mm, which is notably restrained by today’s standards, and at 10.2 mm thick is relatively slim considering the complexity of the L922.1 automatic movement inside the case. In true Lange form, the solid silver dial features the familiar oversized date window up top, followed by the trio of registers for the date, day of the week, month, leap year indication, moon phase, day/night, and sub-seconds.
Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra-Thin Perpetual Enamel
Also limited to 100 pieces, the new 2019 Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra-Thin Perpetual Enamel sports a 39mm white gold case with a stunning blue guilloché enamel dial. This particular dial finishing made its debut late last year and has since graced a number of other Jaeger-LeCoultre models. Powering the Master Ultra-Thin Perpetual Enamel is an enhanced version of the JLC 868 movement, renamed the Caliber JLC 868A/2. The new movement not only has an improved power reserve of 70 hours but has also paved the way for a new dial arrangement. The four subdials dotted around the dial serve to display the day, date, month, year, and moonphase in both hemispheres.
Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Quantième Perpétuel Rétrograde
By no means a traditional perpetual calendar, the new Parmigiani Fleurier Toric Quantième Perpétuel Rétrograde combines the already complex perpetual calendar complication with an ultra-precise moon phase (accurate for 122 years) and a retrograde date. The 42.5 mm 18k rose gold flaunts a hand-knurled bezel with great effect and the white-grained finish dial is the perfect background to allow the moon phase aventurine disk to really pop. Due to the clever layout, the dial is surprisingly minimal with plenty of white space, which is not always the case with perpetual calendar watches.
