Girard Perregaux

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Hands on the Girard-Perregaux 1966 Chronograph reference 49539

Friends,

The time has come for me to give you a “hands on” of the Girard-Perregaux 1966 Chronograph reference 49539.

But let’s start with the basics:

Case size; 40 mm in diameter and 12 mm thick. See through case back.

Case materials; White Gold (shown here) and Pink Gold.

Dial; Hours, Minutes, Sub-seconds, Two register chronograph, Tachymeter scale.

Dial versions; White dial (shown here), Blue and a Limited Edition “Doctor’s Watch” for Dubail boutiques (2 X 10 watches).

Water resistant down to 3 ATM / 30 meters.

Movement; Caliber GP030C0. Automatic, column-wheel, 30 minutes chronograph.

304 components, 38 Jewel and with a minimum of 36 hours power reserve.

Design wise this is a very elegant looking watch.

The Tachymeter scale, the heated blue chronograph and second hands, the applied white gold index, numerals and hands, rectangular pushers….

A past era comes to mind, like the GP chronograph reference 6557!

This watch has a classic 30 minutes chronograph layout with the running seconds on the left sub-dial, chronograph minutes on the right sub-dial and the chronograph seconds in center.

Personally I find the balance very nice and the white dial is very clean and sober, but not in a boring way.

On the contrary, I find it very refreshing.

Even if chronographs by nature tend to have a busy dial the expression “less is more” comes to mind!

Nothing more than the essential, which makes it look stunning!

I know we have discussed this watch many times and some wish for manual movement and there is a manual chronograph in the GP 1966 collection, the 49529.

Same size, but different dial and with date.

But when thinking and re-thinking this watch I came to the following conclusion:

I think that GP including an automatic movement chronograph in the GP 1966 collection is logical.

Why?

Because the GP 1966 collection was created on the forties anniversary of the High Frequency movement that, the year after its launch, rewarded Girard-Perregaux with 73% (!) of all Chronometer certificates from the Observatory in Neuchatel that year (1967).

The movement was the Gyromatic Chronometer HF, i.e. an automatic movement.

Still, there is a manual movement offer, but to exclude the automatic movement from the GP 1966 collection would feel strange…

Almost as strange as making a tribute of a manual movement icon, with an automatic movement and design it so it looks like the “matic” but name it “physic“…

On my wrist the 40 mm GP 1966 case feels perfect!

I said it before and this watch confirms it, for my taste and my 17.5 cm wrist, the 40 mm GP 1966 case is a complete match.

You feel its presence, but it won’t get in your way.

It doesn’t get in peoples eye, but in the same time it won’t go unnoticed.

Must admit that it jumped several steps up my wish list!

I still need to see the 42 mm chronograph, ref 49542 from 2012 in real…

But this one is a beauty, isn’t it?!

Best

Blomman