Hello, and a happy new year to all!!
While I'm not new to the brand, this is the very 1st time I'm posting in the forum. Though I've had a Portuguese 7-days automatic for the last 10 years, my grail watch is actually the IWC Big Pilot Perpetual Calendar.
Being a gear head and a watch enthusiast, I am forever intrigued by the three 'grand' complications in mechanical watch making; the tourbillon, the minute repeater and the perpetual calendar. Not only does BPPC displays the complex gregorian calendar in full glory and synchrony, which itself is extremely rare in the horology world, it is the only one that comes as self-winding with 7-days of power reserve. All hundreds of its components are housed within a WW2 B-Uhr inspired 46mm case that fits my fat wrist to a T.
Prohibiting price aside, IWC only makes metal (precious or otherwise) versions of it in very limited editions. So difficult it is to find a brand new one of them, my wife had to resort to custom making a lookalike cake of it for my 40th birthday!
Never in my wildest dream would I thought I'll ever chance upon an unworn collector's piece, but I did 2 weeks ago! From the pictures, you can tell the rest is history. I got my grail watch, finally...
Whenever faced with difficult choices in life, I always say we can't have the cake and eat it. But from today on, I might just say, "If you're lucky, you can eat the cake first and have it, later." :)
Best wishes to everyone in 2016!!
](
