Why can a perpetual calendar watch become a "holy grail watch" for watch lovers or the ultimate goal of life? This will give you a detailed analysis of the fascinating subtleties behind the perpetual calendar, one of the three complex functions of the watchmaking industry, and its historical story.

What is a perpetual calendar?

Perpetual calendar, also known as the abbreviation of QP French calendar, is one of the three complex functions of advanced watchmaking. Mechanical watches can basically be divided into ordinary calendar function, perpetual calendar function and perpetual calendar function.

Different from calendars with less than 365,438+0 days in a year, or calendars that can distinguish between large and small months but must be manually adjusted on March 65,438+0 every year, the perpetual calendar mechanism not only considers all different dates of 65,438+02 months every year, but also considers leap years that occur every four years. Mechanical memory? For hundreds of years, the correct date, week, month and leap year cycle month are still displayed.

The seemingly simple date display mechanism contains great challenges in structure and technology. It takes hundreds of components to build a perpetual calendar mechanism, which is why watch lovers regard it as a dream.

Patek Philippe 5327J (? Patek Philippe)

Interestingly, despite the name of the perpetual calendar, according to the Gregorian calendar, 300 years out of every 400 years are not leap years, so the perpetual calendar we are starting now still needs to be manually adjusted by 2 100 years. After 78 years, it's our turn to adjust it in the watch shop; As Patek Philippe's classic slogan says:? No one really owns Patek Philippe, just leave it to the next generation. ?

The history of the perpetual calendar?

Can you imagine, it's like a mechanical brain, carrying out complicated and detailed mechanisms with set operating rules, which was published as early as 1762.

One of the people who produced perpetual pocket watches in history was Thomas Mudge, a British watchmaker (also the inventor of lever escapement). 1762 and 1764, he successively created two perpetual calendar pocket watches, which are also collected by the British Museum and Patek Philippe Museum.

The first perpetual calendar pocket watch collected by the British Museum (source: research.britishmuseum.org)

When it comes to perpetual calendar watches, brands naturally come to mind. A page of perpetual calendar watches in history really comes from Patek Philippe watchmaking workshop.

Sketch of the first perpetual calendar movement (? Patek Philippe)

In fact, as early as 1898, the brand has already launched a ladies' pendant watch with a perpetual calendar movement, but unfortunately it has never found a suitable person. It was not until 1925 that the brand put this movement into the gold watch again, and a perpetual calendar watch in history was born.

Patek Philippe 97975, the first perpetual calendar watch in history.

Since then, and the two major watchmaking workshops have also launched watches with brand perpetual calendar movements in 1929 and 1937 respectively.

In addition, it also plays an indispensable role in the development history of modern perpetual calendar watches. Audemars piguet is the first watchmaker in history to set the leap year display on the perpetual calendar. Although this did not lead other watchmakers to follow suit in the 1980s, most of the perpetual calendar watches we see today are equipped with such a display screen.

Airbnb ref 55 16 (? Phillips)

The key brand that has to be mentioned in the history of perpetual calendar development is Leonardo da Vinci's perpetual calendar chronograph ref. 1985 released the 35.7 million calendar chronograph watch. This perpetual calendar watch, designed by Kurt Klaus, a famous watchmaker, abandons the perpetual calendar mechanism that usually requires multiple buttons to adjust, and refines it into a sexual invention that cannot be ignored by winding the crown.

1998 Wan Guo Da Vinci Calendar Flywheel Watch (? iwc)

The above is about the perpetual calendar query 1965 calendar table, and the sharing of perpetual calendars. I saw the perpetual calendar of 1962. I hope this will help everyone!