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Perpetual Calendar Watches

perpetual calendar
noun

A chart or mechanical device that indicates the day of the week corresponding to any given date over a period of many years.

A Perpetual Calendar is a calendar which is good for a span of many years, such as the Runic Calendar, Julian Calendar or Gregorian calendar.  As for the Gregorian calendar; it is a perpetual calendar that consists of 14 one-year calendars, plus a table to show which one-year calendar is to be used for any given year.  Note that, such a calendar will not indicate the dates of holidays and other recognized observances, whose calendar dates vary form year to year.

The Gregorian 14 one-year calendars consist of one year for each common year (a year not including February 29th) that starts on each day of the week and one for each leap year, that also starts on each day of the week.

Also, other calendar variations may be considered to be perpetual calendars, such as the World Calendar and International Fixed Calendar.  These calendars feature days that are not counted as part of any given month or week.  Therefore, each year (and each month within the year) always begin on the same weekday and the calendar is always 364 days in length.  The 365th day in a "common year" and the 366th day in a 'leap year" are not counted as part of the calendar year, in order to make these calendars identical each year.

While some watches just show the time, other watches also show the day of the week, calendar date and month.  Occasionally, you’ll find a timepiece that includes all of these complications and maybe even a moon-phase display.  Perhaps, the most convenient feature to compliment a mechanical timepiece is the perpetual calendar.  The Perpetual Calendar Watch automatically adjusts for months varying from 28 to 31 days and adjusts for leap years.  The accuracy of a perpetual calendar watch’s date complication is normally designed to the year 2100 or beyond.

Abraham-Louis Breguet (1747-1823, the most famous French horologist of his day and perhaps of all time) is usually credited with having invented the timepiece complication which adjusted for monthly and leap-year irregularity corrections automatically.  His invention led to today's perpetual calendar watches, as opposed to "simple calendar" timepieces.  These models were based on the Julian calendar, rather than the Gregorian calendar which is used today.  The actual duration of our calendar year is 365.2422 days.  The perpetual calendar counts the year as having 365.25 days.  While the "simple calendar" (the normal calendar complication found on many timepieces) counts: 12 months x 31 days = 372 calendar days, making it necessary to manually omit 6 or 7 days every calendar year.

However, Breguet’s perpetual timepiece need only be adjusted three times in 400 years.  How?  Leap years are not deleted at the end of three, out of four, centuries.  Regarding leap years; February 29th has been deleted in the years 1700, 1800 and 1900 and won't be deleted in 2000 but, will be in 2100.  Thus, today's commercial advertisements, for perpetual calendar watches, are correct in their claims; that these complications will not have to be adjusted for over a century.

Examples of Name-Brand Perpetual Complications

Citizen Perpetual Calendar Watches:
Perpetual Convenience
If you like the convenience of perpetual calendar watches, you'll especially like the double convenience of Citizen Eco-Drive perpetual calendar watches.  Not only will the perpetual calendar save you the trouble of manually adjusting the dates on your watches, Eco-Drive means you'll never have to change the batteries in your watches either.  Eco-Drive watches automatically charge in light, whether indoors or out.  Also, it's easy to find Citizen perpetual calendar watches combined with other great wrist watch complications as well, for instance; chronographs or 200m water resistance.

 Seiko Perpetual Calendar Watches:  Perpetual Durability
With Seiko perpetual calendar watches, more than just the calendar is nearly perpetual: be sure to look at the many titanium wrist watches available in conjunction with this complication.  Seiko perpetual calendar watches are available with many other features to assure that your watches will last a long time: double-locking clasps, 10 year battery life, screw-down crowns and case backs, accuracy to within 20 seconds per year, and more.  Not only will Seiko perpetual calendar watches display the time accurately for a century, the watches themselves are likely to last that long too!

The new lines of Seiko perpetual calendar watches feature a fully-automated calendar through 2100, including accuracy within 20 seconds per year.  The calendar indicates date and month while the secondhand can indicate number of years since last leap year.  Seiko offers water resistance and a battery life of approximately 10 years for the Gent's Models and 5 year for the Ladies models.

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