IWC Minute Repeater Review

[maccaz]

I have always been a massive fan of the IWC Portuguese family for many reason and am a big fan of their modern automatics and chronographs, however the minute repeater is one of the few "vintage" watches I truely appreciate.

I caught the bug of looking at it constantly on Kings website so decided I had to have it, and at $95 it was a no-brainer.

From placing my order it took 5 days to reach me in the UK, fastest delivery I have ever had. Also Miss King swapped out the tang buckle for a deployant at no extra cost. Overall the transaction could not have been smoother.

Now to the photos, sorry about the lighting, we have just got new LG7 fittings in my office and while they are very good for working, they are extremly bright and throw of alot of reflections:

The dial is one of the nicer rep dials I have seen. While it is very minimalistic, the base of the dial is very nice. If has an almost metalic/pearlesent finish to it which means it seems different from every angle. The numerals are very well finished also, they are nicely rounded and stand out from the dial nicely. The GEN dial is more flat that the rep, also a more white finish without the concentric circles in the second dial.

The movement is acdtually ok to look at. Addmitadly the finish is not as nice as on the 6497 movements in any of the PAM reps, however does look the part.....BUT the thing that kills it is the miss spelling of "INTS3NATIOMAL" and like I said the overall finish is not as clean as others. I will not be showing it off too forwardly. Also it is shame the serial number is 2345678 and the 001/250.

Caseback after being mounted on a GEN strap which did not fit.

Deployant clasp is very good as most IWC reps.

And here is a comparison against its Portuguese Chronograph brothers. Both of the Chronographs are on GEN IWC gators, it is a shame that neither of these will fit on the repeater as the straps are 20mm for the Chronos and the repeater has 22mm lugs. it does wear a little larger that the Chronos at 43mm compared to their 40mm, however as it is thinner on the wrist it adds to the simple dress watch style and has a very nice wrist presence.

This is my first review, but as seems to be tradition, I will finish with some GEN photos.

[gran]

Thank you!

Yes the Genuine photos are absolutely needed for a reasonable review ....without the gen a "review" is much less valuable....side by side is even better

The replica looks fantastic on the wrist its a winner....but yes the misspeling on the movement is shocking but to me the real letdown with this watch is that its not an Minute Repeater at all....imagine if we could have a working replica Minute Repeater now that would be a dream, actually the Chinese make real reapeaters also, so potentially one of those could end up in replicas one day (but then the replica would probably cost more than $2000)

[HartDoc]

I also love how they spelled "Portuguese"

[gran]

I also love how they spelled "Portuguese"

No that is quite cool I think, in German it would be not far from that

http://www.iwcportugieser.com/de/

[maccaz]

A few better pics in natural light.

[gran]

It does look great