I was shocked! The first time I saw the IWC Da Vinci I was shocked in the way I was shocked upon seeing for the first time Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in the Museum of Modern Art - shocked in the way I was shocked upon first listening to Free Jazz. The lugs, the pushers, the Merlin mechanics - I loved it and quietly and quixotically dreamt of owning the watch. Fast-Forward Many Years --> Finally...the stars align and I own the watch. My Da Vinci is the Ref. 3750 in stainless steel with a black crocodile strap with folding buckle and is my daily timepiece.

The job of a perpetual calendar is to measure the days, months and years, allowing for the vagaries of the Gregorian calendar i.e. the sundry lengths of the months, years and centuries. The Gregorian calendar, decreed in the papal bull Inter Gravissimas by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, among other revisions to the Julian calendar, set forth the Leap year rules currently adhered to in the modern era. The Gregorian Leap Year adds a day - namely February 29, to the calendar every four years, excepting that every 100 years the Leap Day is neglected, with the further exception that every 400 years, February 29 is retained - the Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar accounts for all except the 100 and 400 years exceptions.

The IWC perpetual calendar, master-minded by Kurt Klaus, takes the Gregorian calendar in stride - aside from a visit to the watchmaker in February 2100 - and does so solely by means of the watch crown. Whereas traditionally, independent pushers are required to set the day, date, month and moon phase, the Da Vinci's calendar functions are integrated thus allowing the setting of the calendar by the crown alone, permitting the Da Vinci owner to advance the calendar as simply as one would advance the date on a watch with a quick-set-date feature. Please refer to the references below for detailed summaries of the perpetual calendar's operation. The Grande Complication by Manfred Fritz gives a description of the perpetual calendar mechanism in murderous detail that most will find pleasant suffering.

The movement in the current Da Vinci Reference 3750 is the IWC C. 79261 based on the Valjoux 7750 chronograph movement with an in-house perpetual calendar module developed by Kurt Klaus. The IWC C. 79261 is a 30 mm diameter, H 8.8 mm, 39 jeweled, 28,800 vph. automatic movement with a power reserve of approximately 44 hours. The watch's water-resistance is rated at 30 meters.

The case is 39 mm in diameter with a height of 14.3 mm, though the watch looks much smaller on the wrist - the sense of height is attenuated by the tiered construction of the case and crystal. The crystal is domed plexiglass and the Ref. 3750 has a screwed-down crown and pressure shut case-back. The chronograph start/stop button is at 2 o'clock and the reset button is at 4 o'clock. The case lugs measure 20 mm across.

The Da Vinci is supplied with a wax-sealed vial containing a replacement century slide for the twenty-third, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth centuries. A visit to the watchmaker will be required in January 2200 to have the new century slide installed in the watch - then mark your calendar for 2499 for your next IWC check-up.  

The first Da Vinci was introduced in 1970. In 1985 the Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar was introduced. In 1986, a Da Vinci with a high-tech ceramic zirconium oxide case was released and then in 1988, the Small Da Vinci - in 1995 the Da Vinci split-seconds chronograph was introduced - followed in 1998 by the stainless-steel Da Vinci and in 1999, the Da Vinci Tourbillon.