In the latest iteration of their Excalibur collection, Roger Dubuis Excalibur Spider is revisiting two high horology specialties – the Minute Repeater and the Flying Tourbillon. This new Grandes Complications timepiece has a carbon case with carbon bezel and flange.
The engine that powers this timepiece is Calibre RD107, an automatic minute repeater movement coupled with a flying tourbillon and wound by two micro rotors. Dressed in a 47mm case in SMC carbon, the Roger Dubuis Excalibur Spider Unique Series boasts two much-admired and highly exclusive complications. The beautiful aesthetic balance of the tourbillon features its trademark star-in-a-cage allure, offering a number of advantages with regard to volume, while leaving more space for expressing other elements.
Invented in the 18th century to enable people to tell the time in the dark, the Minute Repeater is one of the most sophisticated watchmaking complications. Its mechanism consists in striking the time on demand when pushing a button or pulling up a slide bolt. In its most sophisticated form, the Minute Repeater strikes the hours, quarters and minutes and is generally composed of two chimes, one deep for the hours, one high-pitched for the minutes. Quarters are indicated by the succession of the two chimes: high-pitched and deep. One of the first calibres launched by the brand back in 1997, the Minute Repeater was also the first to be used to launch the Excalibur collection in 2005. The unconventional use of carbon in such a model demonstrates Roger Dubuis’ ability to provide a contemporary take on classics, by staging an encounter between an 18th century function and modern technology.
Carbon is also one of the lightest materials to provide such excellent mechanical resistance, making it an extremely useful choice in ensuring optimal wearer comfort. Undisturbed by anything surrounding it, the result is the purest of all possible chimes. The auditory pleasure it procures is also mingled with a sense of visual interest, which is why Roger Dubuis has provided three highly conspicuous elements.
The firstRoger Dubuis Excalibur Spider is the striking indicator serving to observe the watch while this mechanism is in operation. The second is a function indicator revealing whether the crown is in winding or time-setting position. Last but not least, the All or Nothing indicator shows whether the push button is pressed in far enough to release the striking mechanism.