This is the Quantieme Perpetuel before F.P. Journe redrew its dial. The perpetual calendar itself is unchanged from the version sold now, but the face is built a different way: applied 5N gold elements sitting on a whitened silver ground, rather than the engine-turned silver with gold numerals and aperture frames that replaced it. The case and the matching bracelet are both 18K 6N gold, offered at 40 mm or 42 mm, and the watch stands 10.85 mm deep. Central hours and minutes, day and month in apertures at 12, a large date in a double aperture at 6, the power reserve at 9, and a leap year indication on a small hand at the middle of the dial. This execution is no longer offered, and the reference continues under a different dial.
The difference between the two dial generations is worth setting out, because it is the entire distinction between this watch and the current one. Here the base is whitened silver and the indications are applied to it as separate gold components. On the later dial the base is engine turned before it is whitened, so the surface carries a machined pattern, and the numerals and the frames around the apertures are made in gold and fixed onto that. The second version therefore has two kinds of work on it where the first has one: a textured ground and applied metal, rather than a plain ground and applied metal. That sounds like a small change and it alters the character considerably. This dial is quieter and flatter, and it lets the apertures dominate, which on a calendar carrying four windows and a central hand is arguably the correct emphasis. The later dial is busier and catches more light. Neither is a correction of the other, and collectors are divided on which they prefer, which is generally the sign that both were properly considered. What is not in dispute is that the earlier dial is the one that will not be made again, and on a reference still in production that is the whole of its scarcity.
Two apertures at 12 showing the day and the month is a harder problem than one aperture showing either. The two indications advance on completely different cycles, the day every twenty-four hours and the month every twenty-eight to thirty-one days, so they cannot share a disc and they cannot share a drive. What they do have to share, however, is one particular moment in the year. On the first of a month both must change together and land together, side by side, where any lag between them is immediately obvious because the windows sit next to each other in the same frame. That is why the instantaneous system matters a good deal more on this watch than the phrase itself suggests: it is not simply that the change is quick, but that four separate indications, the day, the date, the month and in some years the leap year hand, are all thrown from one release of stored energy and arrive simultaneously. Miss by a fraction and the error is visible for a full month rather than for a moment, which is not true of a date alone. The calibre 1300.3 beneath stands 6.20 mm rather than the standard 5.80, which is where the calendar went, on plates and bridges of 18K rose gold beneath an off-center 22K gold rotor.
A perpetual calendar and a five-day barrel belong together, and the Octa is one of very few platforms where the argument holds. The problem with any perpetual is that it only works while the watch runs. Let it stop and the calendar stops with it, and restarting means walking the mechanism forward through however many days have passed, in order, without shortcuts. That is tedious on a two-day automatic, which stops on any weekend it is not worn, and it discourages the owner from wearing anything else. On a movement holding about 160 hours it is a much rarer event, because the watch survives being put down for the better part of a week and the calendar keeps its place. The five-day barrel was designed in 2001 for a watch with a date and a reserve indication, well before anybody was building a perpetual on it, and it turned out to be the specification a perpetual most wants. That is a genuine piece of luck rather than foresight, but the result is a calendar you can actually live with rather than one you reset resentfully. Most perpetuals are sold to people who own several watches, which is precisely the circumstance in which a short reserve becomes a real nuisance.
A gold bracelet and a perpetual calendar are two separate risks and both should be checked. Establish the full link count, ask whether any removed 6N links came with the watch, and understand that matching links are not obtainable afterward. Go along the links feeling properly for stretch at the pins, and test the clasp under load rather than by simply opening and closing it. On the dial, examine the applied 5N elements for softening at their edges, which is how a remade dial of this generation announces itself, and compare their warmth against the case in daylight. Then set the calendar forward across a month end and confirm the day, date and month throw together in a single action rather than in sequence. Confirm the leap year hand steps correctly and shows its red L in the year it should. Do not force the hidden corrector beneath the lug at 1 o'clock; a calendar that has run down and gone out of step is a job for somebody equipped to do it. Finally let the reserve at 9 descend its full travel over several days.
