IWC PD - with a difference...

[andy_s]

Extremely rare IWC Porsche Design Reiseuhr Ref. 3822-01 - but what's odd about it?

(Genuine spottings only please - I didn't!)

[markomah]

Is it that they've misspelled Sydney?

Great post, by the way, never seen one of these before.

[andy_s]

Correcto-mundo - I imagine there was a few red faces after that one...

[936ADL]

Were they all like that, or did the mistake ever get corrected? I'd imagine that these are really quite collectable.

[andy_s]

There are a few other odd PD ones - one with a cardinal compass and another with a Mecca compass for example. Certainly interesting and uncommon, quality watches.

I'd imagine the 'Sidney' was a batch and not a run - here are some 'Sydney' ones;





40mm x 10mm, titanium, quartz (either IWC or JLC?).

[cyberface]

Shouldn't 'Dacca' be 'Dhaka' too? Or is that a genuine potential spelling of the city name?

Just checked Wikipedia (which I'm guessing is likely to be right on a topic like this) and yes, it was 'formerly Dacca' but how much 'formerly'? It appears that 'Dacca' was the 18th century spelling whilst the British were messing around on the subcontinent, and I'd be surprised if it hasn't been formally correct to spell it 'Dhaka' since the creation of Pakistan and then Bangladesh. Though since it's apparently a Bangla name and that ain't the Roman alphabet, it's a transliteration so IWC *could* still claim they are correct. And the Encyclopaedia Brittanica lists Dhaka as 'also spelled Dacca'.

However, checking notable world-city-time-zone watches from other manufactures... everyone else goes for Dhaka. Even vintage watches made back when it was kicking off down there - Patek's World Timer goes back before Bangladesh existed and used 'Bombay' and 'Calcutta' for that area of the watch dial

Regarding 'Sidney' though, I'm shocked by IWC making an error quite as catastrophic as this one, and if I'm right about 'Dacca' then they didn't fix it with the new 'Sydney' watches either.

Patek wouldn't fk this up...


...then again...





OK then, jury's still out.

This has strengthened my resolution to sell my IWC.