Sitting in a Jaeger-LeCoultre boutique with the Polaris Perpetual Calendar on one’s wrist, the mind drifts to the surreality of it: this mechanical watch is designed such that you don’t have to adjust the date until the year 2100. For the next seventy-three-plus years—over 27,000 days—this watch will accurately tell you the year, month, date, day of the week, and phase of the moon in both hemispheres.

As I said, it’s surreal.

And then one reflects on the fact that this is an automatic (self-winding) watch with 70 hours’ power reserve. It’s a sports watch with 10 bar of atmospheric resistance, so it’s waterproof down to 100 meters (328 feet). And it’s slender for a sports watch, just 11.97 mm (0.47”) thick.

At this point, it’s simply absurd. Nothing this small and purely mechanical should be capable of this.

Can you put a price on surreality? On absurdity? Jaeger-LeCoultre can.

The Polaris Perpetual Calendar is a seriously expensive watch: $40,400 in the US and 40 400 € in the EU. But for that, you’re getting what must be one of the most impressive sports watches ever made: a perpetual calendar movement that will keep the date accurately until the next century, in a waterproof case rated to 100 meters of depth. And with the stainless steel bracelet, it’s truly a go-anywhere watch. You could wear it for a walk on the beach in the morning, to a business meeting in the afternoon, and with a tuxedo in the evening, and it would look absolutely appropriate in every setting.

Even for those few able to afford such a luxury, for many, this will be the watch of a lifetime. And yet it feels less like a trophy to be displayed and more like a companion to be worn.

The Polaris Perpetual Calendar is an heirloom-quality watch. Patek Philippe’s tagline has long been, “You never truly own a Patek Philippe, you merely look after it for the next generation,” and that’s equally true of this watch. There are caveats, though. We’ll get to those.

Let’s start with what the Polaris Perpetual Calendar does uniquely well: it combines perpetual calendar functionality with the sporty Polaris family features: an automatic movement, 70 hours’ power reserve, and 100 meters of water resistance. It’s thin for what it does, and at 42 mm (1.65”) diameter, it wears exceptionally well on the wrist. If there’s another watch on the market with the same combination of slimness, sportiness, and high complication, I’m not aware of it.

It’s not perfect, though, and two of the issues with performance are accuracy and sports watch-level ruggedness.

Despite Jaeger-LeCoultre’s “1,000 Hour Control” testing program—in which they put their watches through over 40 days of continuous testing to ensure adherence to exacting standards—they don’t back it up with an official chronometer certification, nor do they guarantee a specific level of accuracy. Contract this with Rolex and their “Superlative Chronometer” designation, guaranteeing -2/+2 seconds per day accuracy, or OMEGA and their METAS certification, guaranteeing 0/+5 seconds per day. Ask a Jaeger-LeCoultre sales representative about accuracy and they’ll recite a carefully composed, oft-practiced corporate response that reassures one while not actually saying much at all.

As for ruggedness, for a maker of an entire line of sports watches, Jaeger-LeCoultre does not, in fact, want you to play sports while wearing their watches. From the manual for the Polaris Perpetual Calendar: “Watches with mechanical movements must not be used for sports involving significant risk of impact or abrupt actions, such as golf or tennis.” Contrast this with the relevant question and answer from Rolex’s FAQ: “Can I wear my Rolex while I play golf or tennis? Can I go to the gym with my Rolex? You can play sports with a Rolex on your wrist as the Rolex Oyster case provides the watch movement with optimal protection against shocks.”

Another caveat is travel. I suspect that many of the people who can afford a $40,000 watch also do a lot of traveling, and I’m having trouble imagining them putting up with the requirements of this watch when the date changes while traveling eastward (e.g., from Asia or Oceania to North or South America). The Polaris Perpetual Calendar’s date doesn’t go in reverse. Here’s what an owner must do when faced with this (again, from the manual):

So there’s a four-hour window to make the first time adjustment, then wait until the next morning, then there’s a six-hour window to make the second time adjustment. Got it.

As a mechanical watch, the Polaris Perpetual Calendar is undeniably sophisticated. Is it convenient? If you travel long distances on a regular basis, no.

This leads to a few possible scenarios for owners of this watch:

They don’t travel with it. When they leave home, it sits in a storage case, a safe, or (my bet) a watch winder. This implies that they’re well off enough to have bought not one but at least two heirloom-quality watches. A Rolex GMT-Master II or Sky-Dweller seem like obvious choices: good for travel and rated for sports wear.

They travel with it but leave it set to home time. I guess this is possible, but as someone who travels frequently, even for me, this would be difficult. Living in the US as I do, I could manage this with European travel, just—but once I cross the International Date Line, I’d be too confused to make this work, not just adding or subtracting a single-digit number of hours, but changing the day as well. I’m not sure I see this.

They travel with it, and set it to local time wherever they are, but when flying eastward, they pull out the crown and let time catch up with the watch. This ignores the instructions in favor of a low-effort, passive approach. When I was in the Jaeger-LeCoultre boutique, I was told a story about a customer who had bought this model of watch and then somehow, in repeated fiddling with it, managed to set the date nearly a year ahead. Big mistake. Big. Huge. He brought it in and was told he had two options. He could use the passive approach I described, storing the watch (not on a winder) for a year. It would run down and then, again, time would catch up with it. Or he could have it serviced, but since this was user error, it would be thousands of dollars (as you’ll read below). He chose the latter.

Another caveat to be aware of is service. If you’re a mechanical watch expert—well, you’re probably too busy reading articles on watch enthusiast sites to be here. But if you’re not, be aware that mechanical watches require regular service. Jaeger-LeCoultre offers an eight-year warranty on their watches, which is commendable. But after that, as with any watch, service will be your responsibility. If you don’t wear the watch regularly, Jaeger-LeCoultre recommends a full service every five to ten years; if it’s a daily wear, they recommend every five years. And how much will that cost? In Switzerland, it’s 2.000 CHF ($2,509 / 2 179 €). You can assume the cost will be comparable elsewhere.

Though not at all specific to this watch, you’ll want to consider watch insurance. Your homeowners or renters policy may cover your watch, but it will probably have a number of exclusions that make it less than ideal. A dedicated policy will be more flexible, accommodating, and useful. Such policies typically cost 0.7–1.3% of the insured value yearly. In the case of the Polaris Perpetual Calendar, that would be $289–525 per year.

To be clear, servicing is a fact of life with mechanical watches, and Jaeger-LeCoultre’s warranty is already generous. And unless you’re well off enough to self-insure, or willing to work around the limitations of your existing insurance policy, specialized insurance is highly recommended for any brand of luxury watch. So these issues aren’t specific to this watch. Nevertheless, be prepared for ownership costs of approximately $300–500 per year for the first eight years, then a total of $800–1,000 per year thereafter.

When I think about the areas in which the Polaris Perpetual Calendar is absolutely faultless, I think of presence and provenance.

The Polaris Perpetual Calendar has all the presence you could ask for. It’s elegant yet sporty and classical yet contemporary. The proportions of the watch—the case to the bracelet, the dial to the sub-dials, the internal bezel to the dial—all of them approach perfection. And speaking of the dial, while the sub-dials make it not as obviously visible as with other models in the Polaris family, it’s beautifully finished in a lacquered blue gradient. The sub-dials are subtly but elegantly textured. The case and bracelet are a mix of brushed and polished stainless steel that presents as quietly interesting on the wrist.

Finally, provenance. Jaeger-LeCoultre was founded in 1833. Its first perpetual calendar pocket watches date back to the late 19th century, and its first perpetual calendar wristwatch to 1937. The Polaris line itself dates back to the late 1960s. Among watch enthusiasts, its nickname is, “the watchmaker’s watchmaker”. Jaeger-LeCoultre has as much provenance as any mechanical watch firm operating today.

On the About page, I wrote:

I meant that as a long-term journey, but sometimes it plays out over the course of a single article, as it has here. When I tried on the Polaris Perpetual Calendar in the boutique, I thought it was the most incredible watch I’d ever had on my wrist. I still do. Even at the time, I knew about the watch’s limitations, but it wasn’t until I sat down to write this that I fully came to appreciate them and place them in context.

Every compliment I wrote above holds. It’s absurd that something mechanical and this small can do what it does. It’s surreal to wear something on your wrist that can accurately report the date until the next century. The Polaris Perpetual Calendar is modern, timeless, and a true work of beauty. It’s an incredible achievement by one of the most revered watchmakers in history.

At the same time, it’s easy to be drawn in by the undeniable coolness of a product like this and lose sight of its drawbacks. You can’t wear it to your golf game or tennis match. You aren’t guaranteed a specific level of accuracy. You’re going to be on the hook for as much as $1,000 in annual costs when the warranty ends. And the Polaris Perpetual Calendar has a fear of flying.

In the end, this is less a product review and more of an essay on the question of how we should think about the products we consider buying, especially when they’re at the highest end of luxury. What should we expect from them, and from the companies that make them? How should we be disciplined about making our purchase decisions?

If I were wealthy, I would have bought this watch in the boutique that day, no question about it. It’s a watch I’d be delighted and even honored to wear. But I would have encountered its limitations and it would have migrated from “I want to wear this watch all the time” to “I wear this watch when I’m not traveling or playing sports”. It wouldn’t have been a daily wear watch after all, and that becomes a self-reinforcing state: out of sight, out of mind. So instead of a daily wear, it would have become an occasional wear. And I don’t know how wealthy I’d need to be to happily own a $40,000 watch that I only wear now and then. Let’s say it’s far wealthier than I’m ever likely to be.

What does this mean for you? It’s easy to fall in love with things. It’s harder to stay in love with them. Luxury firms and their salespeople naturally want to create a sense of urgency on your part—they want to make the sale while you’re in their boutique, there and then. I don’t begrudge them that. But neither do I owe it to them.

Nor do you.

What’s a luxury purchase you’ve made because you fell in love with it? Did you stay in love with it?

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