Glashutte Original Senator Panorama Date Moonphase: Saxony Beyond the Wall (VIDEO BLOG)

Glashutte Original may be the gem of the entire Swatch Group. With offerings like the Senator Panorama Date Moonphase, Saxony’s largest watchmaker showcases its flair for style, engineering, and command of tradition. This Glashutte Original Senator Panorama Date Moonphase is built around the fruits of GO’s Cold War trial-by-fire.

Since its early 1990s emergence from the rubble of Soviet East Germany, Glashutte Original has led the resurgence in German watchmaking after nearly a half century under the collectivist yolk. During the lean times, Glashutte’s engineers and watchmakers were forced to design, fabricate, and finish every tool and component (i.e., everything) that could not be sourced from democratic Switzerland’s “watch valley.”

The result is that the post-Soviet GO is the most self-sufficient and Original (capital “O”) of the Swatch companies. This Senator Panorama Date Moonphase is built around the fruits of that trial-by-fire.

The in-house GUB 100-4 movement debuted in this watch back in 2005, and it embodies the best of Germany watchmaking traditions. With a swan’s neck regulator, Glashutte stripes (*not* Geneva), and a skeletonized winding rotor, this automatic movement is as comely as it is reliable. The twin-barrel 55-hour power reserve packs the punch to drive torque intensive complications.

And nothing puts a premium on movement torque like jumping complications. The Glashutte Original Senator Panorama‘s grand date and moonphase indications fit that description. While lesser movements can slow to a near stall while attempting to turn modular calendar functions, the GO movement powers through the changeover like a locomotive through a snow drive.

The payoff is a tandem of a poetic complication (moon) and a practical icon (grand date). Along with A. Lange & Sohne, Glashutte Original has established the double-digit date (“Panorama”) as a modern hallmark of Saxon watchmaking. Unlike Lange’s date, GO’s version features two flush discs sitting on the same plane; the gap between them is too narrow to accommodate a human hair.

The Senator Panorama Date Moonphase is anchored by an anthracite dial with gorgeous guilloche work that adds depth and character to the dark expanse; the complications are the focal points of the converging guilloche patterns.

Stainless steel and a dark dial are a classic combination, and the result is power and presence that belie the watch’s nominal 40mm size; it wears like a 40 but looks bigger.

Glashutte Original‘s “original” thinking continues in the form of a unique seconds synchronizer; the pusher at 8 o’clock engages a vertical clutch that zeros the seconds hand. Why bother with such complexity when other watchmakers simply employ a hacking stop-seconds feature for the same purpose.

In a word, precision. While a hacking device stops the balance and requires the movement to rebuild momentum after a synch, the Glashutte Original “flyback” seconds resets one hand and leaves the balance in “full swing.” After all, what’s the point of synchronizing your watch to the second if it is forced to resume on the back foot?

This Glashutte Original Senator Panorama Date Moonphase represents a coveted discontinued model. Although the nameplate remains in the Glashutte Original catalog, the model was stripped of its charismatic anthracite guilloche dial in 2013 and downgraded to printed (rather than applied) hour indexes. Worst of all, the flyback seconds pusher was replaced with an impractical tool-driven dimple corrector. The pre-2013 watch seen here is the one to own.

See this Glashutte Original Senator Panorama Date Moonphase in high-resolution images with full Glashutte Original factory accessories on www.watchuwant.com