The minute repeater from IWC Schaffhausen, which features in the Grande Complication and Portuguese timepieces, is one of the most beautiful and exclusive horological complications. Stylistically,the most noticeable difference being that the predecessors seconds display 9 o’clock”,but the model seconds display 6 o’clock,because of its level of horological complexity, is built far less frequently today than the tourbillon.
In the 1980s, when IWC Schaffhausen developed a minute repeater of its own for its Grande Complication model and invested many thousands of man-hours into this project, it not only arrived at a result that was technically outstanding in every respect, but it also acquired a taste for it. This acoustic work of art on the wrist, which, in response to a movement of the slide, chimes out the time accurately to the minute on two gongs with different pitches, has since been a permanent feature of its specialty watches. IWC has developed and produced a considerable number of repeating mechanisms in the last two decades – for the Grande Complication, the Il Destriero Scafusia and for various limited series of repeating watches (built since 1995 in the case of the Portuguese model). All were powered by the proven IWC 95290 calibre pocket watch movement. This is a very accurate, very traditional and very slim drive mechanism of the so-called Lépine type intended for openface pocket watches.
In the new IWC Portuguese Minute Repeater, the case size is now 44*14 mm, and the number of watches will be limited to 500 watches in platinum and 500 watches in red gold. The Portuguese Minute Repeater has been given a larger case to accommodate a new drive mechanism. Once again, this is a hand-wound pocket watch movement – the 98950 calibre,vibrations 18,000 /h,52 jewels,power reserve 46 hour–of which the origins can be traced back to the 1920s and which has since been the subject of constant nurture, improvement and modernization. It is a movement with real staying power, which has retained its virtues, but has also been enhanced with a few of the stylistic elements of the early Jones calibres: balance with high precision adjustment cams on the balance bars, Breguet balance spring, three-quarter wheel train bridge, plate and bridge made of nickel silver, long precision adjustment index and special decoration with gilt engraving.
The repeating mechanism, in which 205 individual parts act in concert as if in a mechanical orchestra, strikes all the hours that have passed since the last twelve o’clock on its lower-pitched gong, the quarters that have passed since the last full hour as double strikes, and the minutes that have passed since the last quarter as strikes on the higher-pitched gong. It has an all-or-nothing mechanism, which ensures that the chiming sequence is only activated when the lateral repeating slide is depressed correctly. The repeating slide brings the horological exclusivity of this specialty watch to the notice of a connoisseur. The transparent sapphire glass back provides a view of the finely decorated movement.
