IWC Portofino

A pocket watch for the wrist

IWC traces the Portofino's look to its 1940s and 1950s wristwatches powered by the caliber 89: three hands, clean round dials, nothing extra. In the 1970s the company revisited the simple pocket watch with a model that had thin Roman numerals, Breguet-style hands and a moon-phase display. That pocket watch, the reference 5250, is where the Portofino begins.

In the early 1980s, at a meeting in a Schaffhausen tavern, IWC's head of design, Hanno Burtscher, and the watchmaker Kurt Klaus decided to turn the 5250 into a wristwatch. A quick sketch on a napkin became the reference 5251, released in 1984. IWC calls it the 'Giant Portofino.'

It was a deliberately contrary watch. At a time when quartz watches dominated, the 5251 was 46 mm wide yet only 9.5 mm thick, built around the pocket-watch caliber 9251, whose roots go back to IWC's caliber 74. A large moon-phase window at three o'clock showed a gold moon on a blue sky, and the pale sub-dial against the gold moon earned it the nickname 'Fried Egg.' It was produced slowly from the 1980s into the mid-1990s, and an estimated 350 were made.

Blümlein's classic line

By the mid-1980s the quartz crisis had gutted mechanical watchmaking, and IWC was at a crossroads. Günter Blümlein, who led the company, pushed in several directions at once: Kurt Klaus's perpetual calendar, the Porsche Design sports watches for a younger audience, and a classic line that married traditional Swiss watchmaking with modern taste.

The Giant Portofino became the foundation of that classic line. IWC built smaller, more conventional models around its design cues: round cases, straight lugs and simple dials with classic indices and hands. In IWC's own telling, the name fit because the Italian Riviera town had been a favorite of the rich and famous in the 1950s, and these watches could just as easily have been made in the 1950s as in the 1980s.

From 34 mm to 40 mm

The late-1980s Portofino range was broad. The standout was the reference 3513, a 34 mm automatic with a date; there was also a quartz version, the 3331, and by 1990 a simpler no-date reference 3514. A 35 mm Portofino Chronograph, reference 3731, appeared in 1988, an ultra-thin 32 mm model in 1993, and a perpetual calendar version and several women's models followed. Men's models were offered with more than 20 dials, including a military-style black dial with white Arabic numerals.

As tastes moved toward bigger watches, the popular 3513 grew into the 38 mm reference 3533 in the mid-2000s and then into the 40 mm reference 3565, the watch IWC sells today. For its 140th anniversary in 2008, IWC revived the giant original's spirit with a 46 mm moon-phase Portofino, reference 5448, using an in-house caliber 98800.

In January 2011 IWC revamped the whole collection, adding the 45 mm Hand-Wound Eight Days and a Dual Time and making Milanese mesh bracelets available across the line. A 2014 advertising campaign by the photographer Peter Lindbergh featured Emily Blunt, Cate Blanchett and Zhou Xun, and in 2018 IWC marked its 150th anniversary with Portofino models in white or blue lacquered dials with painted Roman numerals.

The 40 mm Portofino Automatic today

The current Portofino Automatic is a three-hand watch with a date, in a 40 mm stainless-steel case about 9.2 mm thick, water-resistant to 30 meters, under a convex sapphire crystal. Its caliber 35111 is an automatic movement based on the ETA 2892-A2 and refined by IWC, with 25 jewels and a 28,800 vibrations-per-hour beat. A 2026 review gives its power reserve as 50 hours.

IWC describes it as one of the most popular Portofino models. In steel it comes in several dial and strap combinations, such as the silver-dial IW356501 on a strap and the IW356505 and IW356506 on a fine steel Milanese bracelet. In October 2026 IWC's U.S. site listed the strap versions at $5,400 and the bracelet versions at $6,100. The IW356504 is the 18k 5N gold version, listed at $16,900.

Its rarest ancestor trades at a very different level: in a recent listing, a new-old-stock 5251 with a 1995 sales date was offered at $23,000.

The numbers

Reference

Ref. 3565 family; steel IW356501 (silver dial), IW356505/IW356506 (Milanese bracelet); IW356504 is 18k gold

Caliber

IWC 35111, automatic, ETA 2892-A2 base, 25 jewels, 28,800 vph; 50-hour power reserve per a 2026 review

Case size

40 mm, about 9.2 mm thick

Case material

Stainless steel (also 18k 5N gold)

Water resistance

3 bar (30 meters)

Production years

Portofino line 1984 to present; 40 mm Automatic in the 2011 collection to present

Production numbers

Not published; about 350 of the original ref. 5251

Timeline

1. 1984

   IWC releases the 46 mm, 9.5 mm-thin ref. 5251, the 'Giant Portofino.'

2. 1988

   The 35 mm Portofino Chronograph, ref. 3731, debuts.

3. 1990

   The no-date ref. 3514 joins the 34 mm ref. 3513.

4. 1993

   An ultra-thin 32 mm Portofino is introduced.

5. 2008

   For IWC's 140th anniversary, a 46 mm moon-phase ref. 5448 revives the giant original.

6. Jan 2011

   IWC revamps the Portofino line, adding the Eight Days and Dual Time and Milanese bracelets.

7. 2014

   Peter Lindbergh photographs the Portofino campaign with Emily Blunt, Cate Blanchett and Zhou Xun.

8. 2018

   IWC's 150th anniversary brings lacquered-dial Portofino editions.

9. Oct 2026

   IWC lists the steel Portofino Automatic IW356501 at $5,400 in the United States.

The world in 1984

• Jan 24, 1984

  Steve Jobs launches the Apple Macintosh in the United States.

• Feb 7, 1984

  Astronaut Bruce McCandless makes the first untethered spacewalk.

• Jul 28, 1984

  The Summer Olympics open in Los Angeles.

• Oct 31, 1984

  Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated.

• Nov 6, 1984

  Ronald Reagan wins a second term in a landslide.

• Dec 3, 1984

  A gas leak at a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills thousands.

Price record

This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.

By reference price, IWC Portofino is number 95 of 100 in the watches entries of the FLOAT 100. 54 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (85 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The first Portofino started as a napkin sketch made in a Schaffhausen tavern.
• The 1984 original was 46 mm wide but only 9.5 mm thick.
• Collectors call the first Portofino the 'Fried Egg' for its moon-phase display.
• Only about 350 of the original ref. 5251 are thought to have been made.
• IWC says the Portofino family has more variations than any other IWC line.
• The IW356504 often cited as the standard Portofino is actually the 18k gold version.