"Le Portugieser"
“We really don’t know how long an IWC lasts. We’ve only been around for 139 years.
Portuguese Chrono-Automatic. Ref.3714: An IWC is made to be passed on. Le Portugieser, the robust case is water-resistant to a depth of 30 metres. And as each of our Portuguese watches will no doubt see us out, each individual watch is recorded in a comprehensive database. So that following generations will be able to find out where the watch came from. Unfortunately, this does not rule out the usual inheritance disputes. IWC. Engineered for men. Mechanical chronograph movement | Self-winding | Small seconds with stop function | Antireflective sapphire glass | Water-resistant to 30 m | 40.9 mm case diameter | 18 ct. rose gold
IWC Schaffhausen since 1868, Switzerland, www.iwc.com For an authorized retailer nearest you, please call (800)432-9330, or visit our website.”
(Text of an add from the Forbes Magazine Special Issue of June 4, 2007, p.43)
According to another ad by IWC the chronograph Le Portugieser was created in 1938 by IWC at the request of two Portuguese businessmen, Rodrigues and Teixeira.
After the unilateral declaration of independence from Spain 1640, Queen Luisa, wife of King John the Fourth, and the real power owner in Portugal, became regent after her husband’s death, and had on her side a priest “of humble rank but extraordinary ability, Father Daniel O’Daly. A native of Kerry in Ireland and a Dominican friar, he had come to Lisbon to found a seminary where young men from England and Ireland could study for the priesthood and be ordained beyond the reach of Protestant persecution.” … ”The queen appointed him her confessor, and soon afterwards, she appointed him to her council of ministers, to be in charge of foreign affairs, and he became his adopted country’s leading international statesman.”
“Father O’Daly sent from Lisbon to London an English Dominican, Father Barlow. Among Father Barlow’s achievements was the invention of the repeater watch. On Le Portugieser when two buttons were pressed in sequence, it chimed out the hour and the minutes, making it possible to tell the time in the dark. These watches are still made as curiosities and sold for 27,500 dollars each, and are known as Le Portugieser. Father Barlow gave one to King Charles, who was fascinated by it and invited the priest to move from the Portuguese embassy into an apartment to be his own in the royal palace, Somerset House.”[1]
[1] Page, Martin “The First Global Village. How Portugal Changed the World”, Casa das Letras, 2006 (2002), p.182-3
