Introducing Naoya Hida & Co. Releases Its First Perpetual Calendar With The Type 6

If there's a brand that needs no introduction amongst enthusiasts of independent watchmaking yet remains unknown in the larger sphere, it's Naoya Hida & Co. and its Japanese take on vintage Swiss aesthetics. Since the brand's founding in 2018, it has quietly produced, in very small numbers, a collection of compact dress watches that draw upon vintage design cues while ensuring a product that still feels distinctly modern. Hida-san has a long background in the industry, with stints at brands like Jaeger-LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin, and Breguet. He's also known for his time at F.P. Journe and in Ralph Lauren's watch division, which eventually culminated in the founding of his eponymous watch brand. Through the brand's 7-year history, it has stuck to compact time-only dress watches, with the moonphase of the Type 3 being its only complication.

This changes today, as Naoya Hida & Co. debuts its first complication with a capital C, in the Type 6, which features a perpetual calendar. Continuing with the brand's signature dress watch proportions, the Type 6 remains a compact 37mm in diameter for its 904L stainless steel case, while the thickness increases to a still reasonable 11.5mm. The case is finished with polishing on areas like the stepped concave-sloped bezel and top of the lugs to complement brushing the case sides. 

A shaped midcase helps hide the case height, along with the short downturned lugs, and the calendar adjusters jut out on the right side of the case in three positions. For the first time, the Type 6 uses sterling silver for the dial and its three subdials, rather than the German silver used on previous models. German silver is known to patina over time (and that quality is often the appeal), but sterling silver will most likely be more resistant to tarnish.

Steel hands are heat-blued for the calendar complication, with the date and day of week shown through leaf hands and the month shown by a rounded baton hand. The leap year indicator is set as a polished silver disc with a single black-infilled dot as the subtle pointer. In a nice aesthetic touch that helps separate the time indications from the calendar indications, a pair of bright 18k yellow gold leaf-style hands are used for the hours and minutes. The tip of the minute hand is hand-bent to align with the minutes scale. Hida-san seems to love the combination of silver, gold, and blue, and it's been a color scheme implemented in several of his other watches.

Hand engraving is another signature of the brand's watches, but there's more of it on the perpetual calendar. While elements like the Naoya Hida & Co. logo and the raised minutes scale are milled out by machine, every piece of text on the dial is hand-engraved by a single person on the team, Keisuke Kano. Yes, that means that in addition to the Roman hour numerals we've seen before, the perpetual calendar text — dates, days, months, leap years — are also all hand-engraved and filled in with cashew lacquer, a synthetic equivalent to Urushi lacquer. That's a lot more engraving per watch.

While many of Naoya Hida's watches take the humble Valjoux 7750 as the base caliber for the traditionally-shaped round watches, the Type 6 takes a slightly different approach, drawing on the expertise of Richard and Maria Habring of Habring² as well as Dubois-Dépraz, a familiar name in the modular complication world. Dubois-Dépraz does not make a perpetual calendar module for the 7750, but just so happens to produce one for the Habrings' in-house A11B caliber. After some due diligence from Naoya Hida & Co.'s watchmaker Kosuke Fujita, spending time at the Habring² workshop in Austria, the partnership was greenlit.

So why is this interesting when plenty of other brands buy movements from other suppliers? Well, it's because the Type 6 takes from both Dubois-Dépraz and the Habrings, and remixes it in the same way it does with the 7750. Specifically, Hida purchases the components of the A11B caliber from Habring² and the module from Dubois-Dépraz, then replaces many of the elements like the bridges, screws, and more, leading to a finished caliber that's a little bit of Austria, Switzerland, and Japan combined.

One of the most striking aspects of a Naoya Hida watch is the winding tactility in person, with satisfying bright and crisp clicking designed to mimic the winding sensation of many a similar-feeling vintage caliber. The original design of the click-and-click spring continues to be present here, which is part of that suite of modifications to the A11B movement.

Finishing on the Cal.3025PC is standard but not particularly exciting, with circular striping that mirrors the style of many of the Valjoux 7750-based calibers sitting behind solid casebacks in the brand's other watches. Perhaps a closed caseback would have been appropriate here, too, as most of the caliber is covered by a large three-quarter plate with no visible anglage or heat-blued screws. As a manually-winding perpetual calendar, the Type 6 also requires a lot more effort to keep the date accurate if the watch is not wound every single day.

The Naoya Hida & Co. Type 6 is available through a purchase application process through Naoya Hida's website or The Armory. Pricing is set at $57,300. 

While not a limited edition, the Type 6 will be produced in approximately 10 pieces over the next year. If you want to order via the brand's own website, the application page will be live from May 19th at 10 AM until May 22nd at 10 AM JST. Approved purchase applications will be contacted starting in mid-June. If you want to go through The Armoury, the webpage linked will run an application lottery from May 21st to June 15th, and the Armoury staff will contact those selected in the lottery. 

This is an awfully good-looking watch, with an awfully high price point to match. At the same time, sometimes a design is powerful enough in its accomplishment that it overrides the guttural feeling towards a price point that seems much higher than the sum of its parts, especially considering this is the brand's most expensive stainless steel watch to date. Perhaps these are a lot of words to say that the last mile of a Veblen good, such as a luxury watch, is strong aesthetic design, and I think the brand's watches have that in spades.

I first fell in love with the brand's Type 2 when I had a chance to handle one in person a few years back. While it may seem clichéd at this point to say, the Type 2 was one of those watches that transcended my doubts based on the spec sheet alone. Of course, it also helped when the man behind the brand explained a plethora of details in design and execution that would have typically gone unnoticed had I not looked up close, in all of his enthusiasm and passion — Hida-san is truly a watch nerd.

It's understandable to expect more regarding the finishing of the case and movement, but it's also easy to forget where much more of the attention (and ultimately, the cost) is put towards, and that's the dial. The hand engraving of Kano-san is seriously impressive, with the work put towards the silver dial creating something that feels precise but not sterile. With the Type 6, the sheer amount of engraved text shows off more of this handwork than any of the brand's other dials.

Sure, $57,000 can get you a metric tonne of watch anywhere else, especially considering that almost every alternative in this bracket is precious metal. It can get you something like a new Lange 1 (in platinum!), or for just a bit more, a gold annual calendar Patek like the 5396R. If a perpetual calendar in steel is a must, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Perpetual Calendar comes in at almost half the price of the Type 6. And of course, given the Type 6's horological collaboration with the Habrings, it would be impossible to ignore that the folks over in Austria offer a perpetual calendar monopusher chronograph at about half the price (even with an extra complication).

At the same time, all of these alternatives feel like entirely different watches. Sure, many might deliver more in aspects like movement finishing or case materials, but the Type 6 has found an entirely different niche. It's safe to say that almost every single owner of a Naoya Hida watch isn't cross-shopping a candidate for a one-watch collection. Rather, all of the owners I know of these watches have already summited what most would call the peak of watch collecting — chances are, they already own one or more of the above. If you're that kind of collector, this strong design, interesting handwork, and a brand name that speaks only to the inner circle can help justify that price point for something being made in such small numbers. And for those who stand outside of that small owner's club, I hope you'll join me in appreciating something that, at the end of the day, is a very pretty object.

Brand: Naoya Hida
Model: Type 6A
Diameter: 37mm
Thickness: 11.5mm
Case Material: Stainless steel
Dial Color: Sterling silver
Indexes: Hand-engraved
Lume: No
Water Resistance: 5ATM
Strap/Bracelet: Hand-stitched leather strap made by The Sole

Caliber: Cal. 3025PC
Functions: Hours, minutes, perpetual calendar
Diameter: 30mm
Thickness: 7.3mm
Power Reserve: 45 hours
Winding: Manual
Frequency: 28,800 VpH (4Hz)
Jewels: 19
Additional Details: Developed in collaboration with Habring² and Dubois-Depraz. Original design of the click and click spring for winding tactility, as well as proprietary bridges.

Price: $57,300 USD

Availability: All allocations are done via a lottery through either Naoya Hida's website or The Armoury. If you want to order via the brand's own website, the application page will be live from May 19th at 10 AM until May 22nd at 10 AM JST. Approved purchase applications will be contacted starting in mid-June. If you want to go through The Armoury, the webpage linked will run an application lottery from May 21st to June 15th, and the Armoury staff will contact those selected in the lottery.
 
Limited Edition: No, but limited production.

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