Roger Dubuis presents an amazing Grande Complication

Representing an unexpected blend of distinctive character and horological expertise, Roger Dubuis has been at the forefront of expressive watchmaking since 1995. With the bold invention of Hyper Horology, the Maison has become renowned for its limitless obsession with conceiving, designing, and shaping the future of Haute Horlogerie. Sustained by its fully integrated manufacture, where every calibre is made in house, Roger Dubuis commits to performance and strives for excellence. Rewarded by the Poinçon de Genève certification, their traditional yet contemporary masterpieces are a demonstration of radical skill and ancestral craftmanship, which the Maison reinterprets year after year with fervid creativity and innovative materials. With this avant-garde and daring energy, Roger Dubuis is bringing its collections to an exclusive circle of clients and friends.

Mr. Roger Dubuis was a dedicated watchmaker who spent his lifetime imagining new and expressive ways to celebrate the most iconic complications. On the 30th anniversary of his namesake Maison, the watchmakers he inspired are proving that their founder’s emotive dream is still in beautiful motion, by introducing the Excalibur Grande Complication and the Excalibur Biretrograde Calendar

EXCALIBUR GRANDE COMPLICATION
The construction of the Excalibur Grande Complication neatly encompasses a perpetual calendar, a minute repeater, and an automatic tourbillon, all within a single refined movement. The Calibre RD118 delivers 60 hours of power reserve and is further accentuated by different finishes that are used across the calibre’s appearance. This level of detail allows the timepiece to achieve the esteemed Poinçon de Genève certification.

The Perpetual Calendar
Building a perpetual calendar is no easy feat. For Mr. Roger Dubuis, however, the difficulty was part of the attraction. To account for the complexities of the Gregorian calendar, it must be built with a faultless mechanical memory, allowing it to remain accurate for decades into the future. This includes the automatic calculations for months with 28, 30, or 31 days, as well as the adjustment for leap years, which take place every four years. By meeting this necessary and highly elaborate demand, the Excalibur Grande Complication does not require any manual correction until the year 2100 – and then not again for 100 more years.

The Biretrograde Display
This perpetual calendar then goes further still, by presenting its information on a Biretrograde display – which allows the calendar’s hands to move gracefully along the semi-circle scales, before immediately returning to zero at the end of their cycle. In partnership with Jean-Marc Wiederrect in the 1980s, Mr. Roger Dubuis created numerous calibres and registered patents that were truly innovative for their time. One of these was for a co-patented retrograde display system; the two watchmakers optimised and modernised it in their own talented way, and this later became the basis for the first Roger Dubuis watch in 1995. The Biretrograde display seen in the Excalibur Grande Complication includes an individual scale for the day of the week, and another for the day of the month, both equipped with the Excalibur’s skeletonised hands featuring a semi-instantaneous jump. Accompanying the scales, there is also a month disc between 11 and 12 o’clock, and a small leap year indication alongside.

The Minute Repeater
The Minute Repeater is considered one of the most challenging horological complications and requires the watchmaker to act like a musician – carefully adjusting and fine-tuning the sounds as if the timepiece were an instrument. Here, the tritone chime is activated via the pusher on the left-hand side of the case. The information on each cam is mechanically read by the Minute Repeater’s main feeler-spindle system, which passes it on to the racks enabling the hammers to strike the gongs. Roger Dubuis’ Minute Repeater is distinctive for its musicality, and here, it plays “the devil’s chord”. Another advanced function in this timepiece is that for extra security, the “all or nothing” mechanism requires the pusher to be pressed all the way in. Only then can the chime be activated, eliminating the risk of harming the mechanism by accidentally triggering it.

The Tourbillon
For Mr. Roger Dubuis, a tourbillon was the perfect way to gain extra space in a calibre – where more complications and aesthetic expression could be added. The Excalibur Grande Complication fulfils that condition. Positioned between 5 and 6 o’clock, it is a flying construction, like all Roger Dubuis tourbillons, and is built in signature style – from the mirror-polished cage inspired by the Celtic Cross to the ingenious use of lightweight, non-magnetic titanium.

The Excalibur Grande Complication is limited to 8 pieces only, making it a rare creation. The 45 mm pink gold case is set on an interchangeable 3D brown calf-skin leather strap featuring a pink gold pin buckle, while offering an unrestricted view of the mechanics inside through a transparent sapphire crystal caseback.