Girard Perregaux

blomman Mr Blue
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Review: GP Vintage 1945 Large Date, Moon-Phases, Mechanics of Art Deco

Friends,

As you could read in the press release; This is the first time ever that Girard-Perregaux releases a Vintage 1945 with sapphire dial! Reference: 25882-11-223-BB6B

I had the pleasure to be able to handle this watch and to see the watchmakers while they were working on this watch!

The sapphire dial has a “smoked” tone which makes good contrast against the dauphine hands and applied indexes, but still transparent enough to reveal the movement underneath in details.

What is so special with sapphire dial?

Well, we are used to see skeletonized watches where as much as possible of the material is removed, we are used to see watches with big holes in the dial to revel some parts of the movement, like Tourbillons….

But a complete transparent dial, that is not often seen.

The advantage of a sapphire dial versus skeleton or open dials is just the fact I mentioned, the contrast which allows you to easily read the time. On the other two dial types, time is often quite hard to read.

And when you consider that the Vintage 1945 dial is doomed, then it gets even more impressive!

In these shots I snapped at the Manufacture you see how doomed the dial really is.

In fact the dial is almost as doomed as the crystal protecting the dial.

To see the movement through the dial is a real treat! All the gears, disks, screws, levers and wheels… To see how they “dance” in steady rhythm, conducted by the balance wheel on the back which beats in steady pace of 4 Hz. From there see how the force fans out to all the different components setting each in motion according to its function…

Poetry in motion!

The Large Date at twelve comes to life and shows its two disk construction. What surprises many is that the left number is conducted by the right disk and vice versa. When the date changes… Zap! Less than 5 milliseconds!

The sub second at six encircles the Moon-Phases.  Another detail that is revealed by the sapphire dial is that there are two Moon-Phases on the disk and that it takes the moon-Phases disk two “Moons” to complete a full revolution.

Actually the only part where you are able to see the base plate properly is on the lower left area of the dial. You see a hint of Geneva bar pattern in the lower left corner of this shot.

Here we have the movement mounted in its case, soon ready to shipped out.

It was a great pleasure to be able to visit the watchmakers and see them in “action”!

To see all the different steps needed to create something beautiful!

But I guess you are more interested in the final watch!

Here it is:

Good visibility to read time.

Due to the doomed dial, different angles, different light…

Different parts get more visible in different angles.

The dial also shows how well the movement is fitted to case. The movement really fills the case and don’t leave a big empty room on the sides.

The open case back do not reveal the full rotor, but I guess that would have been quite complicated to achieve due to the case shape.

The case back is also curved both length-wise and width-wise.

I will not discuss the case size here; the sapphire dial version is 36.10 x 35.25 mm while the Blue version we saw earlier this year is 36.20 x 35.25 mm, so basically the same size…

But I would like to state my personal impression of this watch: GP hit a home run with this one!

Beautiful, romantic Art Deco design but in the same time a bit cold and technical. As I already mentioned, my eyes start to get used to the XXL size… And my wrist LOVE it!

Actually, I think the sapphire dial makes the watch look a bit smaller than it really is.

I am starting to wonder if this isn’t my favorite version of the Vintage 1945 XXL!

Best

Blomman

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