Eddie's World: Finding back what you let go

Back when I first started that slippery road down watch collecting, my first "expensive" watch was the IWC Portuguese 7 Days reference 5001 introduced in 2004.

When it was first released, the success of the Portuguese was so good that there was a shortage in the market and as luck would have it, I found one in a very unlikely place - Penang Airport in 2005. I have not been back to Penang but there was a watch counter there (past immigration on the left) where I picked this up. Was looking for it in Singapore and Hong Kong but they were all taken then. So, lucky me.

Fast forward two years and I managed to get my hands on the Portuguese 2000 - the original Portugieser reference 5000. So foolishly enough, I sold my 5001... But the good thing was that I sold it to a good friend who, to this day, still owns it and refuses to sell it back to me! The Portuguese 2000 as you might have guessed was released in the year 2000 as an automatic timepiece with a movement built from scratch.

What's the difference between the reference 5000 and 5001? Similarities first - they both come with 7 days power reserve.

About 5 to 6 years ago, I have been trying to find back the original 5001... Why the 5001 and what's so special about the 5001?

On the dial side, the difference is the date as well as the subdial. With the Reference 5000, the main dial is black and the subdial is white while the versions after that is all black. I love the railway minute track and the polished numberals. Then there is the difference in the movement...

With Reference 5001, they were powered by Calibre 50010 for the earlier models which were made between 2004 and 2005. In later models, the Calibre 51010 or the 51011 were used. But all of the calibre 5000 (and those after that) came with the Pellaton winding mechanism that has one of the most efficient winding meachanism in any automatic calibre.

The Calibre 50010 was calibrated to 18,000 vph (2.5 Hz) while subsequent calibres were tuned to 3 Hz. Call me sentimental but it had to be the same... not similar, but the same. (See above) All other automatic 7 days power reserve IWC pieces now uses the Calibre 51011 including the Big Pilot range.

Because of the thin bezel, the details of the timepiece is found in the movement - like the serial number of the timepiece (see above).

The other difference between the 5000 and the 5001 is on the dial - while both the 5000 and 5001 comes with applied Arabic numerals, the 5000 comes with dotted dial versus the 5001 with minute railway track.

The watch is not small - measuring 42mm and also quite thick at 14mm. But the aesthetics of the timepiece is beautiful. But whether it is the Calibre 50010 or the Calibre 51011, the dial is the same and the for those not in the know, what's the difference between 18,000 vph and 21,600 vph?