The Pilot's Watch Double Chronograph Top Gun Ceratanium (ref IW371815) really
look amazing...really excited about the new Ceratanium material.

The most beautiful examples of digitals in an analog world! Thanks for sharing :)

Lovely photographs gentlemen!

Here's mine:

[](s76.photobucket.com/user/watchreviewer/media/AFA1B994-9730-4790-9517-5F657F58DE81_zpsxoitgbxh.jpg.html)

Hello Maciej,

Welcome to the forum. It is difficult to gauge the genuineness of a watch just from a serial number alone. However, there are online tools that can help you date a watch (moeb.on-rev.com/dyIWC/dyIWC.irev). I tried using the number you have mentioned, but the tool is unable to validate the number. Does it come with a genuine warranty card which has the serial number printed on it?

If you have some detailed pictures of the watch (especially of the movement), you can post them here.

You can also write to IWC with all the details you have and they will surely help you out.

This is a great article and a good start to the initiative.

Thanks so much!

This is a great idea Tonny. In my spare time I have always wanted to read such articles but never knew how to identify them. It will be wonderful to have all all of this in one place. Thanks!

Hello George, welcome to the forum.

Cosmetic looks aside the newer Portuguese 5007 comes with the 52010 movement and has two very important upgrades -
1. Ceramic parts for the automatic winding mechanism - This should be able to endure more wear and tear.
2. Two winding barrels instead of one - Better accuracy over the entire power reserve due to fewer changes in isochronism of the balance wheel, something which is important in very high PR movements.

All the best with the deal! You can't go wrong with a 79230 armed GST - Supremely reliable and accurate.

Hello Armine, welcome to the forum!
I have heard of this happen on an automatic movement, but not with an IWC. It was a Seiko 7S26B movement which suffered what WWhately has mentioned above – The hairspring got stuck because of one of the regulating pins thus effectively shortening the hairspring. This resulted in the watch gaining many seconds per minute. If you have not visited a watch repairer and the situation has righted itself on its own, I would surmise that something similar happened in your case – The hairspring has gotten unstuck and the movement is back to normal and is ticking away happily.

You are right - If the tank armour were to consist of a single piece of boron carbide, it would simply shatter when targeted by a projectile. Instead the way this armour is usually designed is by placing boron carbide ceramic tiles interspersed within a metal matrix and backed by layers of some heat resistant elastic material, thus creating an elastic ceramic-metal composite with the benefits of both materials - ceramic for hardness to deflect the energy of a shaped charge and the metallic matrix together with the elastic backing to maintain structural integrity.

Because the ceramic is not in one piece, the decreased surface area actually increases its toughness - For example, if you were to take a piece of chalk and keep breaking it you would reach a point when you would have to exert tremendous force to break it any further. When a projectile hits this composite, some of the ceramic disks actually shatter and abrade the projectile. The shaped charge designed to penetrate the skin of the tank finds a much broader area of impact, thus dissipating the energy. All this sacrifices some of the ceramic discs, but there are other undamaged discs keeping the integrity of the armour intact as long as a new projectile does not hit the same point of impact.

While pure titanium is quite soft (Grades I to IV), Grade V titanium is pretty much as you said, an all rounder when it comes to a metallic watch case - with the strength of high tensile steel at a fraction of the weight, together with almost twice the scratch resistance at around 300+ Vickers hardness, anti-magnetic as well. Also, Grade V Ti can be polished and does not have too pronounced a shade of grey. Few grades of steels (and surface treatments), can outdo this, though they would be heavier than Ti.

The true strength of ceramic lies in its enduring beauty - Decades later the Ingenieur Automatic AMG GT will still look as sharp as the day it was purchased (save a few strap changes). In ceramic materials for a watch case, IMHO Zirconia takes the crown - color, fracture toughness, hardness all well balanced.

While, Boron Carbide is an interesting ceramic material to be used in watches and will resist scratches better than conventional ceramics, it has its own subsequent weaknesses of lower fracture toughness. I do not think Boron Carbide is necessarily better than other ceramics such as Zirconia, currently used to make the pilots watch cases. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses.

There is usually an inverse relationship between how hard a material is and its strength. Ceramics are extremely hard, but are far less strong compared to metals such as steel or titanium. If we look at this link...

www.ceratec.nl/materiaalschema-en.html#materiaalschemaen

...we can see that while the hardness of Boron Carbide (B4C) is 3800 Vickers, its strength in terms of fracture toughness is 3 MPa/m.squared. It also has a flexural strength of 400 GPa. Compare this to Yttria stabilized Zirconia (TZP), a popular ceramic material used in the IWC pilot's line. While this Zirconia has a hardness of 1200 Vickers (a third of Boron Carbide), it has a fracture toughness of 10 MPa/m.squared (3 time that of Boron Carbide) and a flexural strength of 1000 GPa (two and half times of Boron Carbide)

So, while Boron Carbide gains on hardness compared to Zirconia, it loses out on fracture toughness and flexural strength. I do not think a Boron Carbide watch case will survive a fall on a concrete floor, as Zirconia with a higher fracture toughness would not.

That is exactly what I meant (as is also stated in the manual for this watch).

Hello Gustav, the date change deadline is based on the fact that the gears that change the date get meshed a couple of hours before the date changes. Changing the date when the gears are meshed can damage the gear teeth. In the caliber 75320 in your watch, the date should not be changed between 8PM and 2AM. Does your date start to change after 11PM and complete the change at around 4AM? or does it start the change after 3 AM and complete the change at around 4AM?

I do not think its normal for the date to change between 3AM and 4AM on your watch. Reading IWC's literature one can imply that the date for this caliber should normally change bewteen 12AM and 1 AM. See Page 19 of the manual:

www.iwc.com/site_media/uploads/documents/manuals/2013/10/17/IWA50391_REF3910_eu.pdf

I think you should take it to the AD!

Hope this help!

Good point...if pricing is competitive, similar to Montblanc's version at around 300 USD, this challenge could be mitigated to some extent. On the other hand there might be non-OEM strap versions that turn out to be smarter (like the Kairos T-Band)

Thanks Hebe, my bad...didn't know about the earlier rice corn variant...

Hello Michele, welcome to the forum! I believe its the first one...Bracelet reference number IWA05514

Hope this helps!

Sumit

Hello Martin, you can download it using the following link:

media1.iwc.com/site_media/pdf/IWC_Catalogue_2015-16_EN.pdf

Best

Sumit

This is a great idea Tonny! I have downloaded the app, and will download the audio file over wifi. Can't wait to hear it over the weekend!!

Best

Sumit