Hands-On Glashütte Original's First-Ever Annual Calendar Embraces Asymmetry

That autonomy allows Glashütte Original to offer a genuinely varied and rich catalog, built around designs and complications that are difficult to find elsewhere. The company has such a diverse approach to watchmaking that I find it actually quite difficult to determine what single watch could be considered Glashütte Original's signature design. But if I had to name one, it would likely come from the Pano collection of dress watches with recognizable asymmetric dials.

Glashütte Original recently announced a new expansion for the Pano collection called the PanoMaticCalendar, which joins the standard PanoReserve and the moonphase-equipped PanoMaticLunar and stands tall as the company's first-ever watch with an annual calendar complication.

Glashütte Original has maintained the off-center dial displays that are the Pano collection's signature design element. In fact, at a glance, it might be difficult to separate the PanoMaticLunar from the PanoMaticCalendar. The key difference comes in the form of a month indicator that slides along the rounded periphery of the dial in its lower right quadrant. The 12 months are listed in hollow Arabic numerals, and a black disc set on a single ball bearing slides underneath the dial to highlight the current month. In the above image, for example, the date is August 25. (There's no day-of-week indication on this annual calendar.)

The month display is an interesting design approach that recalls the appearance and functionality of a retrograde time display, even if the functionality is entirely different. I find the implementation to be fairly intuitive and clean and consistent with the rest of the dial layout, a clear contrast to the typical, rather fussy approach of using the abbreviated names of months on the dial. The Arabic numerals ensure uniformity with the numerals found on the small seconds sub-dial, the moonphase, and the date window.

The PanoMaticCalendar also includes a number of other updated aesthetic choices focused on streamlining the information on the dial. The unnecessary German-language labels such as Mondphase and PanoramaDatum that can be found on the current-generation PanoMaticLunar have been removed here in favor of the welcome open space that surrounds each complication on the dial. The PanoMaticCalendar lets the watchmaking do the talking. The sloping rehaut around the dial offers an attractive bit of additional three-dimensionality that's not present on previous Pano- watches.

The case of the PanoMaticCalendar also features a new, larger 42mm × 12.5mm profile compared to the 40mm diameter of the standard PanoReserve and PanoMaticLunar. The larger size provides additional breathing room for the month complication on the dial while not feeling overwhelming on my wrist.

The release of the PanoMaticCalendar comes with news of a new movement, the caliber 92-09, that appears to build on the company's impressive caliber 90 base, with the addition of a module for the month display. The month and date are both adjusted in the crown's second position, while the moonphase has to be adjusted via a stylus and a pusher that's set flush against the case above the crown. The movement is further decked out with an impressive 100-hour power reserve courtesy of a single large barrel (more than double the power reserve of the PanoMaticLunar), the hairspring inside is crafted from high-tech silicon, and it features all the intricate hand decoration you expect from a Glashütte Original timepiece.

Glashütte Original knows how to make seriously complicated watches. Flying tourbillons, perpetual calendars, automatic chronographs, and (in my opinion) the world's most useful travel watch can be found throughout the company's collection. This experience is one reason I find the choice to release an annual calendar to be particularly interesting. After all, the annual calendar has never been a particularly sexy or desired watch; as a more approachable alternative to the high-end world of perpetual calendars, you'll rarely hear of collectors clamoring for one.

But it does offer value, another area that Glashütte Original is particularly adept in. The rose-gold example we photographed for this story is priced at $29,000. That's not cheap. There are far more affordable annual calendar options available, but they don't come with the same level of hand decoration or quality of movement as the new PanoMaticCalendar. A more apt comparison of value might come from across the Saxon street at A. Lange & Söhne. The MSRP for a pink-gold time-only 1815, for example, is currently $27,300. 

In addition to the rose gold example that is entering serial production, Glashütte Original is also offering the PanoMaticCalendar in a 150-piece limited edition cased in platinum with a partially skeletonized dial for $39,100.

I'll be particularly interested to see how GO iterates on the PanoMaticCalendar in the future. It makes complete sense to start the model's production in precious metal, but I think there's a lot of opportunity to be had for a future PanoMaticCalendar in stainless steel.

All images by author unless noted.