Roger Dubuis

The early releases of the Geneva watch brand Roger Dubuis, founded in 1995, are attracting more and more attention from experts and the collector community. The brand was created by its founders to produce high-quality wristwatches in the tradition of Geneva watchmaking, which is most convincingly embodied by the old Patek Philippe watches, and this applies not only to the appearance of the watches, but also to the high-quality execution of the calibers. The founders had good reasons for choosing this starting point. Mr. Roger Dubuis worked for 14 years in the high complications workshops at Patek Philippe and therefore knew the most attractive aspects of the great brand’s heritage, which were not always and not fully realized in the current Patek Philippe collection. Carlos Diaz, the second founder of the Roger Dubuis brand, also had experience in dealing with the historical design heritage, key elements of which were stylistically implemented in watches from the Franck Muller brand, for which Carlos Diaz worked before joining the Roger Dubuis project. The present example, a very rare, fine and early limited-edition white gold wristwatch with perpetual calendar, belongs to the heritage of the early Roger Dubuis with a classic round design case, a classic yet spectacular black dial and a high-quality self-winding caliber RD5739 hallmarked with the Poinçon de Genève and having passed the chronometric certification in Besançon, i.e. it is a chronometer, which is very convincingly confirmed by our measurements of the rate accuracy of this watch. In terms of level of finish, caliber and performance, this watch most closely resembles the perpetual calendar Ref. 2497, which was produced by Patek Phillippe from 1951 to 1963. It has the same complications, namely a double window with the month and day of the week at 12 o'clock, a central seconds hand and a moonphase and date pointer on the sub-dial at 6 o'clock. The main differences between the Hommage Perpetual Calendar and the Ref. 2497 are a self-winding movement and a spectacular version of the classic perpetual calendar dial design. Instead of one sub-dial at 6 o'clock, Roger Dubuis has used two, the date at 4 o'clock and the moonphase at 8 o'clock - giving the watch a completely different character. At the same time, the applied Arabic Breguet numerals, which are known to adorn the dials of many fine Patek Philippe watches, seem like an excuse for this free variation on the classic design. The leap year cycle is indicated by four colors in an aperture at 3 o’clock. Red stands for the leap year, yellow for the first year, green for the second and blue for the third year of a cycle. The perpetual calendar module for RD5739 was developed at the end of the 1990s by Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, the renowned movement designer and manufacturer, for Roger Dubuis. Thanks to this module with its characteristic display layout, Roger Dubuis was able to offer its customers a new take on the classic perpetual calendar wristwatch. A notable feature of the early timepieces in the Roger Dubuis Hommage collection is the distinctive design of the 12-sided screw-down caseback, engraved with the brand name “Roger Dubuis horloger genevois” and a garland motif, while the round sapphire window bears the brand's laser-engraved RD monogram. These are the characteristic features of the second-generation Hommage models (Mk2).

This Hommage Perpetual Calendar belongs to the early period of the brand, which is the most promising and attractive for collectors. This is because the watches of the early period were produced in very small numbers, usually in a limited edition of 28 pieces (like this watch) and with a case made of precious metal, mainly rose gold or white gold. Moreover, the watches of the early period are most strongly characterized by the style, sense of tradition and high level of craftsmanship that Mr. Roger Dubuis brought to the brand and which enabled it to quickly gain popularity and prestige among collectors. This Hommage Perpetual Calendar possesses all these valuable qualities.