CLEAN MACHINE: THE CARL F. BUCHERER PATRAVI EVOTEC CALENDAR

The Patravi EvoTec Calendar has a quiet beauty that’s easy to miss at first, and it wants to be loved for its brain as well as its body –but then, that’s what you want in a long term relationship, right?  While other watch companies try to woo with wild designs, or wow with über-pricey complications whose cost would make even a trust fund baron think twice (and maybe wonder just how much steak comes with all that sizzle) Carl F. Bucherer makes watches that actually respect your intelligence.  As the saying goes in watch collector circles, some watches impress your friends, and some your watchmaker –the Bucherer Patravi EvoTec Calendar does both.

The heart of the watch is a mechanism designed and built entirely by Carl F. Bucherer: the CFB  A1004, which adds a calendar, day of the week, big date, and week indications to the firm’s in-house CFB A1000 movement.  The CFB A1000 is a self-winding movement unlike any other being made today –the swinging weight that moves every time you do, automatically winding the mainspring, doesn’t sit on top of the rest of the movement as in other self-winding watches –instead it rotates around the edge.

That means there’s nothing to block your view of the fascinating machinery keeping time on your wrist (in most other self-winding watches the oscillating weight always hides at least half the movement) and it keeps the whole thing pleasantly flat as well.  An anti-fashion watch par excellence, the Patravi EvoTec Calendar is instead an elegant paragon of intelligent design, and a connoisseur’s homage to the romance of micro-mechanics.

The CFB A1104 was designed from the ground up for long-term high precision, with a special two armed system for locking in the fine adjustment of its timekeeping and protecting it from drifting out of adjustment over time.  The EvoTec Calendar’s form-follows-function philosophy has guided the overall design of the watch as well: the advanced big date display (like the movement itself, an extra-robust in-house design) and skeletonized, arrow tipped hands keep everything elegantly visible, and the case design gives the watch a lean masculinity in both the stainless steel and 18K rose gold versions.  Distinctively designed and impeccably engineered, the Patravi EvoTec Calendar is a watch that will only get better with time.

Jack Forster is the Editor in Chief of Revolution Magazine, a quarterly publication celebrating the world of fine watchmaking, and he also manages Revolution Online www.revo-online.com the foremost information and discussion site on the internet for watch enthusiasts.

Like Haute Time? Join our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter @hautetime.