One year ago, Glashütte Original released their PanoMaticCalendar. This piece deserves a closer look for a couple of reasons. One, Glashütte Original's launches are few and far between, especially when innovation is concerned. Two, the PanoMaticCalendar has a pragmatic quality to it, that actually serves the owner. Which is rare enough a feature. Adding an annual calendar to a timepiece with an off-centered sub-dial and a large date is not just useful. Thanks to a special design detail, it actually elevates the graphic balance of its dial.
Born over twenty years ago, the annual calendar has been proving its relevance ever since. More simple and much more affordable than a perpetual calendar, it automatically changes the date according to the length of each month, except tricky February. It's the only time it requires a completely bearable manual adjustment. It doesn't have that cumbersome leap year indication either, which makes for a cleaner display.
And that's exactly where the PanoMaticCalendar stands out. The case diameter is 42 mm, justified by a dial made larger by the addition of the month display. It comes in a bent window, running between 3 and 6 o'clock, bearing 12 numerals. That quarter of a circle enhances the elaborate symmetry on the dial, built on balanced visual elements and sophisticated geometry.
Inside this window lies a sapphire plate, mostly grayed except for the numerals, which are transparent. Underneath it, the movement spins a large ring, making one revolution every four years. It's mostly white, except for a total of four black notches. They're really pointers, which show through the transparent digits above. This construction is smart on two counts. First of all, it simulates a retrograde display without the cost and mechanical complexity it comes with.
Second advantage, it's located on the outside of the movement, adjacent to the large, double disc date mechanism, a Glashütte specialty. Thus positioned, using lateral spaces, it helps reducing the movement's height. A 12.4 mm thick, the PanoMaticCalendar is even slightly thinner than the PanoMaticLunar it derives from.
While they were there, Glashütte Original took the opportunity to upgrade the base calibre on which this annual calendar has been added. Caliber 92-09 receives an entirely new set of regulating organs and, most importantly, a significant increase in power reserve. It jumps from 42 to 100 hours, an operation the brand had already performed a few years ago on calibre 36, the one powering their Senator collection. They're using a new type of mainspring, thinner, more rigid and coiled around a smaller core, which makes it even longer. What's more, just like with caliber 36, the one inside the PanoMaticCalendar isn't screwed down inside the case. At the movement of encasing it, it spins inside a groove on the inner-side of the caseband, like a bayonet.
