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The Glashütter Uhrenbetrieb, manufacturing company of the brand Glashütte Original, also had to adapt itself to the radical changes, and wrote one of the few stories of success of formerly Eastern German companies. Within an extremely short time, the company changed its character; from a producer of cheap and utilitarian timepieces for the populations of several communist states to a manufacturer of highly exclusive and sophisticated mechanical timepieces. This development is reflected by the pedigree of movements over the decades, up to the stunning PanoRetroGraph, and its complicated cal. 65, which again marked the begin of a new era in the company's tradition. While the reliable and proven cal. 39, which is a versatile base for a manifold of complications, will probably stay in production in the years to come, nevertheless the company is now stressing lines of more specialized complicated movements, such as the cal. 6x and 9x series.

I. General impression

When I encountered the PanoGraph for the first time, my reaction was not overly enthusiastic. While I found the new eccentric dial layout of the new Pano-series to be very attractive, and the chronograph's movement breathtaking, I always envisaged a chronograph to be something instrumental, easy to read and to use, but conventional. Yet here was a chronograph that could not be stuffed into this category. It challenged me to explore its design and mechanical uniqueness, it didn't make it easy for me. However, instead of instant love at first sight, which so often tends to cool itself down to boredom, the result here was a very strong affection, that stood the test of time.

The PanoGraph, which I chose in a classic 18k pink gold case, is showing us two faces: While looking luxurious, due to the warm shine of the pink gold case and the golden hands and dial markers, it also is modern and bold. Its minute counter, shaped like an arc segment, even leaves a very technical impression. Despite the substantial size of its gold case, it is not conspicious, certainly not flashy, and wearing it with a casual weekend outfit does not look weird at all.

II. Box and packaging

Normally, I do not lose any words about the boxes in which the watches are delivered. We wear the watch on our wrist, and normally, the boxes inevitably encounter the fate of being stored in some distant corner of our houses or flats. In this case, however, I'll make an exception and specifically dedicate some lines to the Glashütte Original box, because I have such a weak spot for the combination of wood with black.

Within the mass of anonymously alike-looking watch boxes, the GO box is really unique. Cube-shaped, it sports layers of Canadian maple wood with black parts between. As you can see, it perfectly matches the architecturally straight appearance of the Alessi clock, designed by Michael Graves in 1988.

The box's inside is lined with fine chamoix leather, perfectly presenting the watch. In my piece, however, the golden double-G logo of GO was glued wrongly, upside down, into the box; a detail tiny enough to probably escape end control.

A nice feature of the box is a small drawer, which contains a CD-ROM with the complete catalogue and many details on GO, and can be used to store the watch's paperwork, or replacement straps.

III. Case, crystal and crown

It is extremely difficult to reproduce the wonderful complexity of the case design in a depiction. Photographed from straight above, the picture would never disclose the delicately curved flanks of the massive case, which are finely brushed, resulting in a silky-smooth tactile experience. The lugs and the bezel are polished, contrasting the semi-flat sides.

This finish is extremly attractive, and certainly helps a bit to prevent the case from being scratched too quickly. However, it is not very successful in this task, it does not last very long, until the first scratches show up. Well, this is gold, and the traces sum up to a patina that testifies the watch being its wearer's wrist companion. Why should we want to deny it, since we ourselves get wrinkles and loose our hair?

A watertightness rating of 3 atmospheres ( = 30 metres) is appropriate for such an elegant watch; nobody would want to wear a PanoGraph for scuba diving.

Both sapphire crystals, of which the top one is slightly domed, are treated with an anti-reflective coating on the inner side.

IV. Dial and hands

The incredibly complex dial unites a manifold of different surfaces and outlines, and invites the observer to study it in closest detail. In order to value the dial's variety, one should know that no less than 45 production steps are necessary to make it. Let us look at the most important of them:

The PanoGraph's dial is made from massive 935 silver plates, with a thickness of 0.8 millimetres. The raw dial shapes are stamped from silver strips. To achieve the angled frame edges in the date window, the discs have to pressed in a special machine for four times. Between each pressing, the material is heated, until it is redhot. This is necessary to make it soft enough to prevent any cracks in the frame's edges. However, the disadvantage of this lengthy procedure is that afterwards the material does not have a 100 % even thickness any more. Yet the beautiful delicateness of the window frames achieved by these steps more than outbalances the advantages of using simply pre-cut windows.

Next, the holes for the hand's shafts, as well as the date and minute counter windows are cut out, and the fixation/location pins are soldered on. The raw dial discs are sanded and polished, to smoothen out any irregularities of the material. The V-shaped groove around the minute counter is milled by means of modern CNC machines. Afterwards, the whole dial is silver-plated, and the angled frame edges of the date window are brushed with a specific tool, in order to achieve a nicer shine.

Yet even these many different phases of work are but the starting point; the really time consuming effort is still to follow: The register rings of hour/minute and second hands, as well as the two register segments aside the minute counter window have to be grinded individually by hand, while each time, the rest of the dial is protected by a layer of lacquer. In case of the PanoGraph, this means to repeat everything four times: hour/minute, second, and the two register segements.

After completion of the fine grinding, these zones again are covered with a protective lacquer, and the rest of the dial is satinized. After removal of the lacquer, the whole dial is silver-plated again (the second time!), and covered with a new protection, in order to keep it clean while drilling the tiny wholes, which later serve to attach the applied markers.

Next, the dial gets a final coat of Zapon varnish, a crystal-clear acrylic protection lacquer (scale model builders among us will recognize it as the famous Future), which prevents the silver from blackening. After a control of the surface, the prints are applied individually, then controlled again, until finally the last production step can be done: the application and attachment of the markers.

I think it is safe to state that the Pano-series dials are among the most complex series production dials in the current watch industry. The multi-layered impression is created very difficult within only one material layer, while it would have been far easier to simply glue several layers together. Very often, an applied frame on windows is used to create the three dimensional effect, and as a positive aside, can hide any production irregularities, which are not uncommon on the edges of cut out windows. Neither of them has been used in the PanoGraph's dial, and the more the owner knows about the production steps, the easier it is to really enjoy its wonderfully varied appearance.

Against this background, the clean and sober golden hands appear to be simple, but they aren't. The hands for the hours and minutes are nicely faceted, while the other three (small second, chronograph second and minute counter) are flat.

All are meticulously polished, including the edges. The chronograph second carries the traditional double-G logo as counterweight, and as a nice detail, the tip of the minute counter hand features a tiny spot of red paint, to make reading this unique display a bit easier.