BASELWORLD 2017:

Upping the Excellence: Glashütte Original’s New Perpetual Calendar


Glashütte Original introduced an all-new in-house base movement, Caliber 36, at last year’s Baselworld, casing it in an elegantly simple three-hand timepiece called the Senator Excellence. Just one year later, the German luxury brand expands the Senator Excellence family with one of the watch world’s most desirable and difficult complications: a perpetual calendar.

Glashutte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar - Steel - reclining

The Glashütte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar combines the time, weekday, month, and leap year indications of a traditional perpetual calendar with the Saxon manufacture’s own finely worked moon-phase display and its well-known Panorama Date feature. Discreet correctors in the sides of the case (42 mm in diameter, 12.8 mm thick, offered in both satin-polished stainless steel and 18k rose gold) enable easy adjustments to the weekday, month, and moon-phase displays, while another “universal” corrector sets or changes the day, date, and month together. However, with the impressive 100-hour power reserve provided by this watch’s movement, Caliber 36-02 — the base Caliber 36 with an in-house-made perpetual calendar module — it is to be hoped that the owner would need to use these convenient tools only rarely.

Glashutte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar - Steel - date CU
The dial features Glashütte Original’s hallmark Panorama Date.

The various timekeeping and calendar elements are arranged in elegant symmetry around the silver-grained dial. And as per usual for Glashutte Original, great attention has been paid to subtle detailing: the curve of the moon-phase at 8 o’clock echoes the lines of the case, while the relief moon disk itself is domed and framed by a galvanic blue sky. The Panorama Date at 4 o’clock and the month and day-of-the-week indicators are in softly curved rectangular frames. The leap-year indicator, in a subdial at 12 o’clock, is designed for easy legibility at a glance, with a counterclockwise hand moving across a scale of 1 through 4.

Glashutte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar - Steel - moon-phase CU
The domed, relief moon-phase is set against a starry dark blue sky.

The watch’s case is water-resistant to 50 meters and its varnished, silver-grained dial hosts laser-cut, galvanic black indices (Roman numerals at 6 and 12 o’clock) and a classical railroad chapter ring. In a bit of aesthetic subtlety, the leap year “4” numeral and the minute numerals are printed in black on the stainless steel model and in red on the rose-gold watch. Both versions have striking, traditionally blued hands for the hours, minutes, and seconds. Both are also, as mentioned above, equipped with the manufacture Caliber 36-02, which boasts all of the attributes of the technically groundbreaking Caliber 36 in addition to the perpetual calendar functions. (To learn more about these attributes, read my review of the original Senator Excellence).

Glashutte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar - Steel - angle
Subtle distinction: the leap-year and minute numerals are black on the steel version (above) and red on the gold (below).
Glashutte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar - gold - angle

Both versions of the Glashütte Original Senator Excellence are mounted on Louisiana alligator leather straps,  black on the steel, dark brown on the gold (the steel model is also available with a steel bracelet). Finally, good news for potential customers: prices are eminently reasonable for a perpetual calendar with a high-precision, lavishly decorated in-house movement: just $22,000 in steel and $35,100 in rose gold. Glashütte Original says that the watches will be available at retail in the summer.

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  1. Sylvio F. Bertoli

    What? For “just” US dollars 22 K / USD 35.1K I would forget the perpetual calendar and just wait for the new Rolex Cellini Moonphase which will reach stores in the last quarter of 2017. The Rolex’s rose gold watch will cost about USD 26K.and most probably in time will be much more valuable than a Glassütte.

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