Grande Complication watches

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GRANDE Complication watches would be those with at least two important complications, or special pieces which seek to conquer significant new horological frontiers.

Patek Philippe celebrates both past and future in terms of their Grande Complication watches this year.

The classic perpetual calendar-chronograph combination that made the brand a household name for the ultra-rich in the Forties and Fifties may well be celebrated for the last time this year in the form of a yellow gold perpetual calendar-chronograph 5970. White gold and rose gold versions have already been discontinued, and this one isn't expected to last very long either, by most accounts.

Another Patek classic called the 5016 - which combines perpetual calendar with tourbillon and minute repeater. Their all-new 5207P boasts the same combination of complications in platinum - but with improvements on the technical side. And there was only one piece in the Basel showcase.

In this latest version, the perpetual calendar functions are all supposed to jump instantaneously at midnight - day, date, moonphase and, if necessary, the month as well. Two discreet windows on either side of the moonphase function as day-night and leap-year indicators.

IWC offers a rose gold alternative to the Patek 5207 in their 140th anniversary year, but here a chronograph replaces the tourbillon in the 5207. This latest incarnation of their own Grande Complication recalls the lines of their Il Destriero Scafusia, which was launched to celebrate their 125th anniversary in 1993 and, likewise, boasts the brand's trademark four-digit year display.

For the Breguet featured on this page would suggest that it's a perpetual calendar watch. But the tell-tale sign that it's something much more lies in the faint outline of a slide lever peeping out just beyond 9 o'clock. More importantly, we are happy to testify that the sound has improved from its previous watches of this genre.

Jaeger-LeCoultre's ground-breaking Gyro is the timepiece that held us all entranced four years ago with a tourbillon cage that rotated through multiple dimensions. The Gyro II celebrates the brand's 175th anniversary this year.

It features a spherical tourbillon cage in a Reverso case which houses a balance spring pulsating in cylindrical fashion rather than side to side - something first patented by English watchmaker John Arnold in 1782.

Audemars Piguet