Pre-Owned IWC by Analog Shift Portugieser Chronograph Edition 150 Years 40970018/AS05082

Why We Love It 

While the Big Pilot Collection might be their headliner, it is their diverse line of exceptional chronographs that IWC is most respected for amongst enthusiasts today.

Whether from their Pilot, Aquatimer, Ingenieur or Portugieser Collections, an IWC chronograph is always a good choice, and in our opinion, a Reference 3714 Portugieser is amongst the most compelling. In production for over 20 years, the 3714 is nothing short of a contemporary classic.

This particular model, a Reference IW371602, was released in 2018 and features a 41mm stainless steel case, a lovely deep blue dial with Arabic indices, a matching feuille handset, and a sapphire display caseback- revealing IWC's Calibre 69355 automatic-winding chronograph movement within. Additionally, this piece comes with its complete with its full kit!

This lovely piece perfectly straddles the line between dress and sport - a balance not easily achieved, but universally welcomed. Combine its versatility with its iconic design and modern-day IWC pedigree and it is a winner on all fronts!

The IWC Pilot’s Story

The history of IWC can be said to be one of marriages. For example, a marriage of the Old World to the New, or of the craftsmanship and tradition of the Swiss with American innovations and technology. But perhaps the most enduring association is between IWC and aviation.

When an American watchmaker named Florentine Ariosto Jones arrived in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, he found a city almost frozen in time. Though the Industrial Revolution had swept through America (where Jones worked as a director of a prominent watchmaking company), in Switzerland the situation was very different. Watchmakers still plied their trades by their own firesides, as they had done for centuries; but Jones had in mind something different: an American-style factory where the watches would be designed and assembled in keeping with the old Swiss ways.

His methods caught on, and soon there were 196 people employed at his factory.

Though IWC was founded 35 years before Wilbur and Orville Wright’s first flight, the association between aviation and IWC began just as the aviation age dawned. A pocket watch made by IWC in the 1890s found its way into the pocket of one Robert Albert Lotter. Lotter was a pilot in the German Luftwaffe who served with distinction during the First World War.

Two decades later, in 1936, IWC would release a watch that set the standard, more or less, for what a pilot’s watch is supposed to be—in fact, this watch, the Spezialuhr für Flieger or Special Pilot's Watch, was the first specially-designed pilot’s watch. Another would follow in 1940, the Big Pilot, which has spawned an eponymous model in IWC’s current collection. However, despite the Big Pilot’s current popularity, it was the Special Pilot’s Watch that would lay the cornerstone for IWC’s most iconic line: the Mark series of pilot’s watches.

IWC released the Mark XI in 1948 according to specifications set forth by the British Ministry of Defense. These watches had to be legible, compact, and able to withstand exposure to the magnetic fields emitted by instruments in an airplane’s cockpit. The Mark XI, therefore, had a black dial with large luminous Arabic numbers, and the Calibre 89 movement (regarded as perhaps the best mechanical movement ever produced) was encased in an iron cage.

The Mark XI served as the basis for design inspiration for a robust line of pilot’s watches still being produced today – easily identifiable by their clean, uncluttered dials, robust cases, and outstanding quality.