Rolex unveiled their first triple calendar, the Perpetual Padellone, in Milan on 15 September. This is the first true triple calendar (day, date, month and moonphase together) Rolex has made since 1953. In its entire history, the brand has only ever produced two such watches: the reference 8171 and reference 6062, both launched around 1949–1950 as a tentative foray into serious complications, using the brand’s most sophisticated in-house movement of the era.
The new platinum Perpetual Padellone alongside the ref. 8171 that inspired it, one of Rolex’s rarest watches of the post-war era.
Both references were discontinued by 1953, quietly replaced by the far simpler Day-Date in 1956. It took until 2017, and the now-discontinued Cellini Moonphase, for Rolex to touch a lunar cycle again at all, and even that lacked the full day-date-month complexity of the original pair. The 8171, nicknamed “Padellone” (Italian for “large frying pan”) after its comparatively broad 38mm case, is now one of the most fought-over vintage Rolexes in existence; a steel example sold for over $1.1 million at Christie’s in 2013.
Rolex’s Calibre 7190, whose patented Haplos system recognises 30- and 31-day months automatically, needing adjustment only once a year.
The new Padellone borrows the nickname outright and reproduces the original’s layout almost exactly: day and month windows at 12 o’clock, a pointer hand tracing the date around the dial’s edge, and a moonphase at 6. What is genuinely new is the engineering underneath. The original required correction every time a month ran short, but the new Padellone’s patented Haplos system automatically distinguises 30-day from 31-day months, needing just one adjustment a year, at the February-March turn.
Every indication, day, date, and month, jumps instantaneously at midnight, a mechanical trick the 1950s version never attempted. It runs on the new Calibre 7190, an evolution of the 7135 that debuted in 2025’s Land-Dweller, carrying over that watch’s 5Hz frequency, silicon Dynapulse escapement, and Syloxi hairspring, across 30 patent filings.
The Everose gold Padellone pairs its white dial with Rolex’s new seven-link Settimo bracelet.
The Padellone is only the second watch in Rolex’s Perpetual collection, which launched in 2023 specifically to revisit the brand’s own dressier, more complicated heritage, further from its tool-watch identity. The Land-Dweller’s 7135 movement platform gave Rolex, for the first time since the 1950s, a proprietary high-frequency escapement actually capable of carrying a complication of this nature. Three versions are available, 18kt Everose gold with a white dial, on either the new seven-link “Settimo” bracelet (£55,300) or a brown alligator strap (£49,150); and 950 platinum with an ice-blue dial on black alligator (£60,700). Santa’s list?
Author: Andrew Hildreth
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