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Lot Essay
This reference 325 is a very attractive example of the legendary "Portugieser model, impressing with its very good, original overall condition, fully serviced by IWC in Schaffhausen in 2015 and ready to wear.
In the late 1930s, IWC received a rather unusual order from a customer in Portugal who requested a wristwatch with the same size and accuracy of a pocket watch. To comply with his request, IWC chose their at the time slimmest and most reliable calibre 74 movement and cased it in stainless steel. With its impressive diameter of 43 mm, the Portuguese (Portugieser in German) was considered enormous compared to wristwatches popular at the time, not corresponding to the Zeitgeist of the period, more oriented towards smaller, Art Deco style watches. As a consequence, only a very limited series of the model was made.
Its main design features are a sober, easy to read streamlined dial with Arabic numbers, a slender bezel to make the watch look even larger, leaf hands and a large subsidiary seconds dial at six o'clock. Although IWC used a variation of dial layouts, hands and numerals, the most common combination was a silvered dial with embossed Arabic numerals and leaf ("feuilles de sauge") hands. The majority of the Portugieser watches made during the 1940s and 1950s was fitted with calibre 98, an upgraded version of the original calibre 74.
The Portugieser, the first wristwatch using a pocket watch movement, can be considered a precursor of today's large size wristwatches. A legend and classic amongst collectors, the revolutionary model is one of IWC's signature pieces and the obvious choice to celebrate the company's 125th anniversary in 1993 with the launch of a limited edition of total 1000 examples. Since then, the "Portugieser" series of watches comprising nearly every conceivable horological complication has been one of IWC's most successful lines
In the late 1930s, IWC received a rather unusual order from a customer in Portugal who requested a wristwatch with the same size and accuracy of a pocket watch. To comply with his request, IWC chose their at the time slimmest and most reliable calibre 74 movement and cased it in stainless steel. With its impressive diameter of 43 mm, the Portuguese (Portugieser in German) was considered enormous compared to wristwatches popular at the time, not corresponding to the Zeitgeist of the period, more oriented towards smaller, Art Deco style watches. As a consequence, only a very limited series of the model was made.
Its main design features are a sober, easy to read streamlined dial with Arabic numbers, a slender bezel to make the watch look even larger, leaf hands and a large subsidiary seconds dial at six o'clock. Although IWC used a variation of dial layouts, hands and numerals, the most common combination was a silvered dial with embossed Arabic numerals and leaf ("feuilles de sauge") hands. The majority of the Portugieser watches made during the 1940s and 1950s was fitted with calibre 98, an upgraded version of the original calibre 74.
The Portugieser, the first wristwatch using a pocket watch movement, can be considered a precursor of today's large size wristwatches. A legend and classic amongst collectors, the revolutionary model is one of IWC's signature pieces and the obvious choice to celebrate the company's 125th anniversary in 1993 with the launch of a limited edition of total 1000 examples. Since then, the "Portugieser" series of watches comprising nearly every conceivable horological complication has been one of IWC's most successful lines