Sometimes a classic watch is anything but ordinary. Let’s take a close look at a watch with a timeless design from a German watchmaker who has held his own against most luxury Swiss watchmakers.
From the Saxon region in Germany, Glashuette Original Senator Chronograph Panorama Date shares their little watchmaking town with a few more watchmakers par excellence such as A. Lange & Sohne, and the most recent major player in the German watchmaking arena; Nomos. Let’s take a close look at their Glashutte Senator Panorama Date to explain what makes this wristwatch the special timepiece that it is.
As part of Glashutte Original’s Quintessential collection, the Senator Panorama Date series has a special place. Most of the other watches in the Glashutte Quintessentials collection have busier-looking dials which include sub-dials, power reserves, and such.
However, the Glashuette Original Senator Chronograph Panorama Date is a three-hand watch that has a stronger semblance to the watches found in the Senator Excellence collection and was designed with a clean and lean classic-looking off-white/cream colored dial. The black Roman numerals are finely printed and seem to hang from the railroad seconds track which wraps around the perimeter of the dial.
One of the most striking features of this watch is its elegantly shaped hands. The hour hand has an elongated spade shape while the minute’s hand has an oblong hourglass shape. The second hand is slender and has a Glashutte Original logo as a counterweight on the other end. The same hand design combination can be found in the Glashutte Original Senator Excellence Perpetual Calendar.
Even more striking than the carefully crafted shapely hands is the hue of blued steel. This beautiful shade of blue is achieved through a thermal reaction wherein which the steel is evenly heated using a process that changes its color.
Between the 4 and 5 o’clock positions on the dial, there is the date aperture which displays the date using a stately bold serif font. The date mechanism uses a double-disc to function. The solid 18kt rose gold case has a diameter of 40mm which is a conservative men’s size for today’s growing trend of larger watches. The rose gold case is 11.52mm thick and tucks away nicely underneath a shirt cuff. One nice feature that the GO Senator Panorama Date offers is a recessed seconds-reset button which is discreetly located on the side of the case at the 8 o’clock position and can be pushed using a special stylus tool that comes with the watch.
This watch is powered by an in-house Glashuette Original Senator Chronograph Panorama Date caliber 100-03 movement which beats at 28,800 VpH, contains 51 jewels, and has a power reserve of about 55 hours when fully wound.
As with just about every Glashutte caliber you can expect some impressive craftsmanship and skilled finishing on the movement which you can see through the transparent sapphire crystal case back. The rotor that provides the bi-directional automatic winding has a skeletonized emblem with the letter G back-to-back in gold. There is also a weighted 21kt gold strip at the edge of the rotor which is beautifully finished with striped finishing which can also be found on the 3-quarter plate. Below is a photo of the 100-03 caliber as seen through the sapphire crystal transparent case back of the stainless steel model # 100-03-32-42-04. Pay attention to how the striped finishing causes light to refract off the movement and light it up. It really adds to the magnificence of the caliber.
One of the things that I have always found fascinating about mechanical watch calibers made in Glashutte is the flashes of vibrant colors that are found on the caliber. The blued screws to the pink ruby jewel bearings and even the polished and finished steel and gold. It all provides for a movement that looks more like a piece of fine art and less like a micromechanical engine.
The rose gold model depicted at the beginning of this post is the reference number 100-03-32-45-04 and comes on a black alligator leather strap with a folding buckle in a matching 18kt rose gold. This model has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $19,500 but can be purchased here at a discounted price.
There is also a stainless-steel model that has reference number 100-03-32-42-04 which is hard to come by these days since this series is being phased out and replaced with a newer version which is now being placed in the Senator Excellence collection called the Senator Excellence Panorama Date. It has a slightly different look to the dial which uses both index hour markers and Roman numerals and is powered by a newer movement, the 36-03, which has a better power reserve.
The 100-03-32-42-04 had an MSRP of $8,900 and we happen to have one left in unworn/brand new condition and is currently selling a few thousand less than the MSRP. Both models (the stainless steel 100-03-32-42-04 and the rose gold 100-03-32-45-04) use the same exact spectacular 100-03 self-winding movement. The only difference between the two watches is the case material. One is stainless steel while the other is rose gold.
In summation, this collection has some very beautiful watches and no matter which model you choose, you will own a piece of fine horology, German precision engineering, and artisanal craftsmanship.
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Irecently had an excellent opportunity to try out a brand new timepiece from German-based watchmaker Glashütte Original. The brand introduced the Senator Excellence collection back in 2016, and at Baselworld this year it added more options which are less formal than the first editions. It was apparent to Glashütte Original that, while very handsome to look at, the first watches with their imposing Roman numerals were a lot less appealing to the younger market. To change this, they created a watch which has become one of my personal favourite dress watches, here’s my take on the Senator Excellence Panorama Date Moon Phase. While those Roman numeral versions are also available in 18K red gold, these new pieces are only available in steel for now, though I suspect a gold version may come along in the future, even white gold perhaps.
The first thing I noticed about it upon taking it out of the FedEx box was just how light it is for the size of the case. The watch weighs in at 86 grams on our patented VSS (Very Scientific (kitchen) Scales), despite this, the stainless steel case is 42mm in diameter, polished on the bezel and lugs and brushed on the sides. It would be interesting to see what the watch is like when put on the stainless steel multi-link bracelet, but then I would have missed out on the awesome leather strap. There’ll be more on that in a bit.
The dial is very clean, legible and oh-so German in design. Only the bare essentials here, there’s not much writing, and the Glashütte Original logo is quite small. Above that logo is the moon phase display. The moon phase itself is very accurate, requiring a reset only once every 122 years. It contrasts with the blue of the dial quite well, as the disk is silver, but this does make the tiny stars quite hard to make out, I know they are microscopic, but collectors of such fine timepieces enjoy examining them with a loupe. The moon itself is brilliantly polished and inverse domed in shape, this isn’t visible to the naked eye, but it does show up with a macro lens.