Girard-Perregaux Photo Essay

The Girard-Perregaux Collection

Remember our trip to Girard-Perregaux earlier this year?  No? You can find it by clicking here! Bert and I headed to Girard-Perregaux, not only to see the workshops and meet the people behind this great brand from La Chaux-de-Fonds, but also to have a look at their impressive collection of watches.

Not only did we get a sneak preview of the Girard-Perregaux Constant Escapement (“No pictures please!”), we also got to see some of their wonderful timepieces that we would like to get our hands on in the future for a review. What to think of the new Traveller Collection? Or the Hawk Chronograph? In the meanwhile, we made sure to capture some of these pieces, including their Vintage 1945 Tourbillon with three gold bridges.

New versus Old – Vintage 1945

One of the people at Girard-Perregaux shows us his vintage Girard-Perregaux watch, a beautiful rectangular 1945 model. We thought it would be nice to have it next  to a new Vintage 1945 collection piece from the Girard-Perregaux collection. You can see that the core values of these Art Deco timepieces are still present in the current collection. Although it has grown a bit to the taste of the modern men. We selected the Vintage 1945 XXL (large date, moon phases), reference 25882-52-121-BB6B to go with the real vintage Vintage. For your idea, the dimensions of the left watch (below) are 36mm x 35mm.

Although the case size changed quite a bit during the years, the shape of the case, the beautiful art deco lugs and crown remained the same. Take a close look at the shape of the hands. A slightly different shape, but very fit for the current model (and size).

From this angle (picture above), you can see that the new Vintage 1945 XXL is slightly more domed and that the sapphire crystal is more integrated with the case. The vintage Girard-Perregaux 1945 model has a plastic crystal that sticks out quite a bit. Because the plastic crystal is also a bit domed, you will see that it magnifies the dial a bit as well.

Which one would you pick? We know there are many vintage watch fans out there amongst our readers! What do you think about the bicolor case of the 1945 model? Although there is still market for bicolor watches, we are glad that Girard-Perregaux chose to manufacture an all gold Vintage 1945 model instead.

Last but not least, a photo of the Girard-Perregaux 1945 only, the true “Vintage”. The combination of the bicolor case with the brown strap is perfect.

Girard-Perregaux Chrono Hawk

I’m pretty sure that will see and hear a lot more about the new Chrono Hawk watch. This sporty chronograph has a perfect 44mm diameter size and seems to be a real sports watch instead of a luxury watch that has a sporty look. Inside this watch is Girard-Perregaux’s in-house developed and manufactured caliber GP03300-0073 movement. Made out of stainless steel with some rubber elements to emphasize on its sporty character (and making it WR to 100 meters).

Girard-Perregaux Traveller WW.TC

Remember my review of the Girard-Perregaux world timer watch a while ago (2011)? Here you see the new Traveller WW.TC watch. A completely new collection that focuses on the globetrotter. The Traveler WW.TC inherits some of the neat design aspects and functionality of the WW.TC collection. The design of the Traveller WW.TC is more soft and sleek than its predecessors of the WW.TC collection.

We will get back to this timepiece with more pictures and details during or right after Baselworld 2013. This 44mm globetrotter beast definitely needs a FW test drive, as I love the world timer complications. In my opinion it is one of the most useful complications out there, besides a date and a chronograph of course.

More Vintage 1945

In case you wondered about the difference between Girard-Perregaux’s Haute Horlogerie and ‘regular’ men’s collection, we’ll show two Vintage 1945 models that belong to each of these collections. As explained in our visit report of the Girard-Perregaux manufacture, there is a distinction between the manufacture of the haute horlogerie collection and the normal manufacture collection. Both collections have in-house movements and are being developed in the workshops in La Chaux-de-Fonds, but the haute horlogerie collection includes tourbillons, minute repeaters and even a jackpot complication for example.

Below we show you the Vintage 1945 Tourbillon with three gold bridges (reference 99880-52-000-BA6A) and the Vintahe 1945 XXL Chronograph (reference 25883-11-121-BB6C). Both watches share the same design codes and proudly represents the Girard-Perregaux manufacture, but are completely different watches to watch purists.

More information can be found on the official Girard-Perregaux website.