Roger Dubuis Unveils The Excalibur Grande Complication

Forbes

01-04-2025

The Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication
To honor the 30-anniversary of the Roger Dubuis watch brand, the company unveiled the Excalibur Grande Complication with three complications and a biretrograde signature all stamped by Poinçon de Genève certification. The watch is limited to eight pieces and was unveiled Tuesday at the opening of the 2025 Watches and Wonders watch fair in Geneva.
Watchmaker Roger Dubuis (1938 – 2017) and watch designer, Carlos Dias, founded the Roger Dubuis watch manufacturer in 1995 and introduced its first timepieces four years later. The company is known for producing nearly all the components for its highly complicated timepieces in house. It specializes in complex tourbillons and skeletonized movements housed in watches with avant-garde contemporary designs. Since its founding, the company has produced 33 in-house mechanical calibers. The namesake watch brand was acquired by Richemont in 2008.
The caseback revealing the caliber RD118 for the Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication
Roger Dubuis delivered its first in-house Grande Complication caliber in 2009, the caliber RD0829, with a perpetual calendar, a minute repeater and a flying tourbillon double micro-rotor. A Grand Complication watch is one that has several complications beyond telling time. How many of those complications and which ones need to be included has never been strictly defined. Roger Dubuis defines a Grand Complication as having at least three additional functions. The RD0829 did this in 2009 and the current Excalibur Grande Complication, does this as well.
The 2025 Excalibur Grande Complication is powered by the Caliber RD118 automatic movement, which combines a perpetual calendar, a minute repeater and a tourbillon with a 60-hour power reserve. The movement is further accentuated by different finishes that are used across its appearance. Every surface of the 684 components were hand-decorated, the company said, earning it the Poinçon de Genève certification.
A view of the Roger Dubuis signature Tourbillon and the biretrograde display for the perpetual ... More calendar
This perpetual calendar provides automatic calculations for months with 28, 30, or 31 days, as well as the adjustment for leap years. By meeting these needs, the calendar does not require any manual correction until the year 2100 and then not again for another 100 years.
In addition, some of the calendar information is presented on a biretrograde display, which consists of two retrograde hands that jump back to their starting point after completing a full cycle. In this case the days of the week and the days of the month are each displayed on semi-circular scales on the dial. A hand moves across each scale until reaching the end before snapping to the beginning of the scale, starting the cycle again. There is also a month disc between 11 and 12 o'clock, and a separate small leap year indication disc next to the month disc.
Roger Dubuis, in partnership with fellow watchmaker, Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, co-patented the retrograde display system in the 1980s, which is the basis of the one being used for the Excalibur Grande Complication, the company said.
The tritone chime for the minute repeater is activated by a pusher on the left 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.
The gongs produce a sound that the watch brand describes as 'unsettling,' sounding what is known as 'the devil's chord' or the 'diabolus in musica' during medieval times. The tritone chime rings a low pitch for the hours, a high pitch for the minutes and two tones for the quarter hours. Consisting of three tones or six semitones, the devil's chord was prohibited in religious compositions, Roger Dubuis said.
The Roger Dubuis Excalibur Grande Complication
Roger Dubuis added an 'all or nothing' mechanism that requires the pusher to be pressed all the way in before the chime is activated. This is used to eliminate the risk of harming the mechanism by accidentally triggering it.
Positioned between 5 and 6 o'clock, the flying tourbillon is a complication in all Roger Dubuis watches. And like all Roger Dubuis tourbillons, it is built in signature style that includes a mirror-polished cage inspired by the Celtic Cross and the use of lightweight, non-magnetic titanium.
The dial and all its complications are contained in a 45mm pink gold case. The caseback provides a full view of the movement. The watch is completed with an interchangeable 3D brown calf-skin leather strap and a pink gold pin buckle.