Just as mountaineers claim to tackle the world’s most difficult peaks “because they are there”, so watchmakers seem to set themselves challenges to overcome simply “because they can”.
Why else would perfect replica IWC’s engineers have thought of devising a watch with a display that will provide an accurate representation of the waxing and waning of the moon for the next 45 million years?
That is the claim made of the luxury fake IWC Portugieser Eternal Calendar launched at Geneva’s Watches and Wonders show last month, a timepiece specifically designed to solve the conundrum of the Gregorian calendar’s complex leap-year exception rule.
A regular aaa quality replica IWC perpetual calendar is considered to be one of the most technically difficult complications to perfect in a clockwork mechanism, since it must recognise not only the five short months of the year but also the occurrence of leap years, which typically occur every fourth year.
The Gregorian system, which is today used almost everywhere in the world — apart from Ethiopia, Nepal, Iran and Afghanistan — divides the year into 12 months comprising 28, 30 or 31 days. Years divisible by four count as leap years, meaning that a 29th day needs to be added at the end of February.
But an additional correction of top quality fake watches is required in order to keep the calendar synchronised with the actual solar year (around 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds) because only years that can be divided by 400 are leap years, with all others being common years. As a result, 2000 and 2400 are leap years, but 2100 and 2200, for example, are common years.
Regular, clockwork perpetual calendars only account for a leap year following three regular years, meaning 2100, 2200 and so on will result in incorrect displays because three corrections will be needed over a 400-year period.
Swiss movement fake IWC’s solution to a problem which only a minuscule proportion of the world’s population are probably aware came in the way of a special reduction gear to add to the drivetrain of the 396-part movement.
Far from being a simple fix, developing the component necessitated the use of a special computer programme that simulated more than 22tn combinations of wheel sizes and tooth counts.
In addition to the double disc moon phase indicator (representing both hemispheres) the SFr150,000, platinum-cased high quality replica IWC will also run autonomously for up to 70 hours — but if it is allowed to stop, the mechanism will need to be re-set in order for accuracy to be restored.
