Grand Complication Pocketwatch
This masterpiece encompasses all the exceptional achievement of the watchmaker's art. Grandes Complications were first built in the second half of the 19th century in the Joux Valley north of Geneva, near the French border. The 1920's marked the onset of an age when there was hardly anyone left who could afford such a costly and complicated timepiece. Remaining watches and movements were sold off in the course of time, and no new Grandes Complications are known to have been designed since. IWC, however, still has a few movements, for which the special parts are individually precision hand-crafted.
The classic case of 18
ct. red gold is based on a historical model. A special feature is a so-called
"oreille" or lug on the lid. 
The movement, comprising over 1300 parts, is protected from
dust by a second lid.
The optical display of the IWC Grande Complication shows hour, minute, second, day of the week, date, and month (perpetual calendar), moon phases, and a seconds chronograph. Acoustically a finely adjusted repeater will strike the hour with quarter-hour and minute increments.
The fortunate possessor of a Grande Complication owns not simply a collector's item but an incomparable showpiece of the watchmaker's art, perfect down to the last detail. No more than four or five can be produced each year.
An IWC is not a mass product. This can be verified anytime in the pedigree ledger. Since 1882 IWC has been engraving an individual serial number and the caliber designation on each IWC movement and also entering by hand in the pedigree ledger all the details about the reference number, caliber, material, case number, delivery date from the factory and the recipient.
Since the masterpieces from Schaffhausen often become heirlooms, descendants or later purchasers can always obtain from IWC the exact data on any IWC watch.
The case number 1107985 of a world famous owner of an IWC pocket watch: Sir Winston Churchill. Eight Swiss Physicians presented this time piece to him on the occasion of his now famous address in the Great Hall at Zurich University on September 19, 1946. In the pedigree book there is the entry: the watch (movement # 955025) left the factory on November 11,1944. Its scheduled date for re-testing was November 2000, it made it to the appointment.
Another watch, owned
by C.G. Jung (#132006) left the factory on December 17, 1901. Seventy years later,
in September 1971 it was brought back to IWC.
It was cleaned, oiled, adjusted and tested for 10
days. It was found that with an average daily gain of 2 seconds it still
matches the accuracy of an electronic tuning fork watch.
For more than 100 years the worlds finest tools have been used to fashion these watches: the human hand. This is why these watches have been considered rarities from the very beginning.
To make a watch by hand these days is no longer thought of as being a masterstroke of watch making. But the difference is that IWC watchmakers regard it as far, far more than that. For instance, devising, producing and assembling gear mechanism with a conversion ratio of 6,315,840,000 to 1. And spending months of painstakingly precise work assembling 1300 individual parts to produce a watch that tells the time both visually and audibly.
And developing a sophisticated system of pressure barriers to make a watch crown water-proof to 2,000 meters (the Titan Ocean 2000 Diver's watch from the Porsche Design range). And constructing a mechanical movement that makes a watch antimagnetic to 500,000 ampere/meter (the Ingenieur). Or- and this is probably the greatest achievement of all- passing on their knowledge and experience to a new generation of watchmakers and training them to become watchmakers par excellence!
Apart from the skeleton watches, most wearers of IWC watches practically never get to see the technical skill and craftsmanship of the watch movement makers. Only the accuracy of IWC watches which regularly surpasses the standards of the Swiss Institute for Chronometer Testing gives an idea of what's happening inside. But since the inside qualities of a watch are often judged by its outward appearance, the engravers invest their whole skill and their love for the craft often for days on end in the engraving of initials, names, family crests, and personal dedications on the case back for example.
This is why IWC watches have a personality of their own from the very beginning.