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Not very long ago, a collector friend called the Octa Quantième Perpétuel “the biggest miss in horological journalism in recent years.” Ouch. He claimed the watch had received very little attention from the mainstream watch media. And he wasn’t wrong. This is a Francois-Paul Journe perpetual calendar wristwatch after all, and it’s the first perpetual calendar with instantaneous jumping day, date, and month made by anyone. I decided it was time to right this wrong. There are currently four different Octa QP models, and I was lucky enough to get my hands on the 40mm model in red gold with a red gold dial, my favourite of the four configurations (there are platinum cases and 42mm versions too). It’s a pretty good way to start on the right footing.
To get a sense of the obsessiveness encapsulated in Journe’s new perpetual calendar right off the bat, there’s one thing you need to know. The calendar indications (the large date, day, and month) all change in an instant, and the only way you can capture their jump is if you used an extremely high-speed camera. That’s how Journe checked their speed and synchronicity during the development phase, and if you visit the manufacture in Geneva, you’ll find that very camera sitting inside the master’s office.
First Impressions
The first thing you’ll notice about this perpetual calendar is that it has a relatively streamlined dial. Traditional perpetual calendars use multiple sub-dials to display the day, date, and month, and many of them even have a moonphase indication too. That’s the way it’s been since the very first perpetual calendar wristwatch, and it’s a familiar image in the minds of collectors. Information overload is certainly part of the appeal of owning a perpetual calendar, but so many times watches that go that route trade in legibility for busy dials. The funny thing about watches with complications is that they are only as good as their most basic function, which is to tell the time in a clear and legible manner. That’s the information the wearer is after more often than not. And if the watch fails at this levels, it fails completely.
The Octa QP is a perpetual calendar that behaves more like a time-only watch. What I mean by that is that the calendar functions are secondary to the hour and minute hands. The latter are what you will see first when you look at the dial of the Octa QP, and right away they direct your gaze toward the chapter ring, away from the cluster of indicators, and directly towards the hour markers.
The Octa Quantième Perpétuel is the type of watch you say to yourself you’d wear every day if you had one, but if you did, you would end up wearing it only occasionally, mostly in the evenings, since this one really can’t afford too many careless knocks.
Arthur Touchot
Then, from left to right, you’ll find the power reserve in a well-defined space on the left-hand side of the inner dial, and last, but certainly not least, the calendar indications, each one framed by its own dedicated aperture window, and the leap year indication, which is placed at the very center of the watch, around the pinhole for the hands – a tiny hand points toward the red “L” during a leap year.
It’s an incredibly well-thought-out dial. Perhaps the best that F.P. Journe has made yet, in my opinion. The calendar is condensed to show only the information that is relevant on any given day. Unnecessary information is not shown, so that only what is important is delivered to the owner of the watch in a quick and clear manner.
A prime example of this is the leap year. The information it provides is of little importance – it changes only once a year – and yet many QPs display it quite prominently. Others choose to hide it completely, by placing it at the back. But Journe’s solution shows a little more ingenuity and, dare I say it, a little cheekiness on the watchmaker’s part.
The most satisfying aspect of the dial though is its symmetry – and who would have thought that we’d be saying that about an F.P. Journe? The French watchmaker is a serial offender when it comes to making asymmetrical dials. It’s a signature, of sorts. Sure, the power reserve is off to the left on this watch, but the hands are still centrally placed and the windows are centrally aligned. It still has that definitively Journe look, but in a way that will satisfy those craving balance.
It’s a move that certainly seems necessary for a perpetual calendar too. As I’ve previously mentioned, there’s a lot of information for the wearer to digest here, and an off-balance layout would only add confusion to the dial. In fact, that’s precisely how F.P. Journe packaged his first perpetual calendar, the Octa Perpétuelle, and the results weren’t so good.
On The Wrist
Quite often when I put a watch on the wrist, I genuinely do not know if it will wear comfortably. There are a few exceptions of course, one of them being anything made by F.P. Journe. But there are still things to look out for, particularly when trying on a perpetual calendar. Because the complication often requires that several hundred components fit into a tight space, quite a few watchmakers are forced to stack them and add a couple of millimeters in height in order to make a watch that is not too large. However, the Octa QP is only 10.8mm thick, and that’s despite having a large balance wheel, not to mention four discs for the calendar indications.
It’s a matter of personal taste, but I found the more compact size suits the Octa QP a little better, but maybe that’s just me holding on to the era of smaller F.P. Journe cases. The Octa QP was one of the first standard F.P Journe watch to break into 42mm territory. For what it’s worth, I spoke to a few owners of the 42mm Octa QP, and all of them said they picked the larger size not because of the size of their wrist but because they felt it was better proportioned.
The Octa Quantième Perpétuel is the type of watch you say to yourself you’d wear every day if you had one, but if you did, you would end up wearing it only occasionally, mostly in the evenings, since this one really can’t afford too many careless knocks. However, this is where the movement’s performance comes in, big time. An inherent weaknesses of any perpetual calendar is that it’s instantly noticeable when you’ve left the power reserve run out for too long, and it’s often quite complicated to re-adjust the calendar indications before wearing it again.
Because all corrections can be made via the crown, it’s much less of a pain with the Octa QP, but chances are you won’t even have to experience that because of the movement’s 120-hour power reserve. That’s a five-day insurance policy for the wearer, which guarantees the watch will continue running smoothly as long as you wear it a few times per week. If, however, you did let it run down, F.P. Journe has installed a rapid month corrector underneath the lug at one o’clock, so you won’t have to go through the date indication to catch up on the calendar.
The Movement
The Octa QP is powered by a chronometer-certified movement, and like the precision chronometers the company makes, it is manufactured in red gold. All of it, from the mainplate to the bridges. Journe chose caliber FPJ 1300-3, an automatic movement that supports several complications in the Octa line, as the basis for his second perpetual calendar. A huge advantage of the caliber is that the dimensions stay the same (30.8mm x 5.8mm), no matter what is added to it.
This movement features a large balance – which is atypical for watches that have long power reserves – which is free-sprung and vibrates at 21,600 vph. The movement is wound by a beautifully decorated 22k gold rotor placed on a ball bearing system to maximize the efficiency of even the smallest movements of the wrist. It’s a stunning sight underneath the sapphire caseback, and its another way Journe watches distinguish themselves from the competition. Speaking of which…
Competition
In red gold, the QP retails for $ 67,800 (40 mm) or $ 69,500 (42 mm), while in platinum it will set you back either $ 71,700 (40 mm) or $ 73,400 (42 mm). So, what else can you buy for approximately $ 70,000? Well, certainly not another instantaneous perpetual calendar, and that’s why it’s so difficult to compare the Octa QP to the rest of the field. But here’s our best shot.
If legibility is strictly what you’re after, the closest thing to the Octa QP is the H. Moser Endeavour Perpetual Calendar. This one’s another perpetual calendar concerned primarily with being minimalist, and in rose gold it retails for $ 60,000, which is slightly less than Journe’s model. It’s a little trickier to read – the indexes around the dial work as both the hour markers and the month indication and it takes a little mental agility to read – and crucially, it does not display the day of the week. But the point is once again to streamline the dial. However, and I don’t mean to slight Moser, but I don’t think these two are comparable because independents tend to attract clients who buy into their brand, and Moser and Journe are two very different brands.
More traditional rivals may offer more competition. Audemars Piguet, Lange and Patek Phillipe all have perpetual calendar roughly in the same price range. However, the 41mm Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar, the 38.5 mm Langematik Perpetual and the 39.5mm Ref. 5327R display their calendar indications in a much more traditional layout, with multiple subdials and moonphase indicators.
Lange’s and Patek’s watches are also both more expensive than the Octa QP, and that makes Journe’s perpetual calendar his finest and most serious challenge of the current watch establishment. It’s certainly the most inventive.
Final Thoughts
I mentioned earlier that one of the pleasures of owning and wearing a perpetual calendar is the overwhelming display of information on a single dial. Which is why I’m surprised to say I found this perpetual calendar even more enjoyable to wear in the long term than most classic perpetual calendars.
In terms of design, the Octa QP introduces only a relatively minor modification to the traditional perpetual calendar display. Some of the earliest perpetual calendar wristwatches displayed the day and month through apertures, and the digitization of the date is simply the latest evolution. It’s not totally unexpected that Journe would be the first to display all of the calendar indications digitally either, since the double date structure is one of his specialities.
The all-digital display has left us with a watch that looks significantly less like a perpetual calendar. Instead of dominating the dial, the calendar indications fade into the background, to the benefit of the time-display, and, ultimately, to the benefit of the owner of the watch as well.
After spending a week with the Octa Quantième Perpetual, I find myself thinking of it not as a perpetual calendar that happens to be made by F.P. Journe, but, rather, as an F.P. Journe that happens to display a whole lot more than any of the French watchmaker’s other creations. It’s a very mature watch from Journe, for his most mature clients. And perhaps that’s why it took one of them to convince me to pay attention to this watch in the first place.
For more, visit F.P. Journe online.
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