Manual Winding or Self Winding? What's your preference?

Throughout my collecting journey, I have never intentionally choosen a particular timepiece just because it was manual winding or otherwise. But oddly enough, my collection has gravitated towards timepieces with manual winding movements.

What are the considerations when choosing a timepiece - for sure, the movement is one of the main consideration. I don't think I have consciously sought a timepiece just because it is manual winding or self winding. But for a geek like myself, the full view of a manual winding movement in its full glory gives me that satisfaction of a well laid out architecture as well as movement finishing. And the winding to give life to the timepiece is a ritual that most of us do with great pleasure - that tactile feel.

For chronograph, I personally prefer the manual winding movement. For instance, both the Lange 1815 Chronograph (above) and the Montblanc Villeret 1858 Vintage Pulsographe (below) featuring the Minerva movement have such a nice movement layout and the finishing on the movements are sublime.

Ask any collectors and most will tell you the Lange 1815 Chronograph or the Datograph movement is to die for. The depth and construction of the manually wound calibre L951.1 for the first gen Datograph is the gold standard.

What about self winding movements?

While there are benefits to having a self winding movement, like the convenience of not having to wind the movement, the view at the back is less appealing, at least for me.

The rotor placement and the size of the rotor obscures part of the movement. To many collectors, half the fun is the ability to be able to see the movement and admire the bridges and finishing of the movement. Imagine such a well finished movement like the one below, the Glashutte Original Senator calibre 36-01... unfortunately, the rotor covers parts of the movement.

Well, that's traditionally true - the obscuring of the movement by the rotor. In come this invention called micro-rotor...

With the micro-rotor, the fact that the rotor sits on the same plane as the main bridge gives us an unobscured view of the movement. Combining fully visibility with the convenience of an automatic calibre. But some will argue the efficiency of the winding mechanism is not as productive as a full rotor.

Take a look at the micro-rotor on the Chopard LUC Lunar One Perpetual Calendar.

The inclusion of the micro-rotor opens up the whole movement, exposing the entire main bridge and the finishing on the bridges... Wow!

Perhaps the micro-rotor is a go-between. A good one at that.

But for now, I think the manual winding calibres are awesome. Take a look at this Roger Dubuis Sympathie Bi-Retrograde Chronograph Perpetual Calendar. Gorgeous movement...

What about the iconic Lange 1?

Or the Duometre range from Jaeger leCoultre...

And a hark back to vintage... the IWC Poruguese Jubilee reference 5441

And the Armin Strom is another beauty... What's nice about the Tribute 1 is that the watch comes with 5 days of power reserve on one full wind.

And if 5 days of power reserve is not enough, what about 7 days of power reserve on the Moser Perpetual One?

Or the Parmigiani Hebdomadaire? 8 days!

Even the "simpler" UNITAS movements can be well decorated beyond recognition. Take a look at these two examples... First the Pascal Coyon Chronometer

And the Felipe Pikullik ZMB1. Both redesigned and finished to the highest level...

Or the Corum Golden Bridge

I think my preference is clearly favouring the manual winding movement pieces. Like I said, I did not intentionally start out that way but along the way, my preference has become quite clear.

I guess there is no right or wrong - it's personal preference at the end of the day. So, what's yours preference? Manual winding or automatic?

The Brilliantly Designed Moser Perpetual Calendar

Every now and then, someone comes along and make less more - such is the case with the Moser Perpetual Calendar.

The design of the timepiece was by Andreas Strehler and what a stroke of brilliance. Traditional Perpetual Calendars have all the sub-dials but what Andreas Strehler did was to present the essentials in the front and move the "non-essentials" to the back.

At a glance, one might mistake the Perpetual Calendar for a classic timepiece with a large date but on closer inspection, you see that little arrow sticking out - what you might ask is that for?

There are 12 markers on the dial. What better way to use the markers to represent the 12 months in the year - and the little arrow points to the month of the year! When the marker points to the 4 o'clock position, it's April. Doing away with the traditional sub-dials also made the dial a lot cleaner and legible.

Keeping the essentials means that with one peek, all the information is there - time, date, month and power reserve. The leap year indication was moved to the rear and what a move - who needs to know which cycle is currently on. I definitely don't so this was a feature I was happy to have seen relegated to the back.

The other very useful feature of the Moser Perpetual Calendar is the "Flash Calendar" which allows the owner to adjust the time in either direction, forward or backward via the crown without fear of upsetting the movement.

What's more, the date window displays a large date. And unlike traditional perpetual calendars, one uses the pushers to advance the indicators on the subdial. With the Moser Perpetual, the crown is all that is needed to adjust the date and month.

The manual winding movement HMC341 (changed to HMC800 in the new Endeavour line) is an integrated perpetual calendar movement. Where most QPs use a modular approach i.e. using a perpetual module built on a base calibre, the Moser is a fully integrated perpeual calendar movement.

The attention to details are fantastic - from the movement engraving to the interchangeable escapement module, the HMC341 is finished to a pretty high standard.

Nicely handcrafted logo

The interchangeable escapement module (below) found in the HMC341 movement. The interchageable escapement allows the faster servicing of the watch - instead of taking apart the escapement, the service personnel need only swap out the module for a fully regulated and adjusted new module.

There is so much that goes into the design of the Moser Perpetual Calendar. With the double barrel, the timepiece comes with an impressive 7 days of power reserve.

Located at the 9 o'clock position, the indicator gives a discrete view of the power reserve.

This model comes with a black lacquer dial, 42mm rose gold case, rose gold folding clasp and black croc leather strap. We have heard many names given to this piece but I still say that this is the easiest and most sophisticated Perpetual Calendar on the market.