Roger Dubuis Excalibur Spider Minute Repeater Tourbillon Carbon

Roger Dubuis makes minute repeater tourbillons. In fact, the Geneva manufacture has been making automatic minute repeater tourbillons since the second edition of Watches & Wonders held in Hong Kong since 2014. What’s more impressive is the fact that the Geneva based brand is among the few watchmakers in that canton who receives the prestigious Poinçon de Genève for all their timepieces.

The Poinçon de Genève was an artistic requirement which today includes technical standards and it’s important in the context of the new Roger Dubuis Excalibur Spider carbon minute repeater; consider this – exposed thanks to the “Spider architecture” and totalling 558 components, all finished to Geneva Seal standards, just how much work would be involved in this grand complication?
It takes 1241 hours to make the Roger Dubuis Excalibur Spider’s RD107 minute repeater flying tourbillon calibre and as a result of stringent Poinçon de Genève criteria, 328 of those hours are dedicated to finishing and adjusting the complicated calibre to be worthy of the forementioned Poinçon.
We last saw the minute repeater flying tourbillon calibre in 2014’s Hommage Roger Dubuis Minute Repeater Tourbillon Automatic but its been a highly complicated movement that’s been around since SIHH 2010 when it was unveiled in the Roger Dubuis Excalibur Tourbillon Minute repeater prototype and the majesty of the calibre has been on display to varying degrees over the last 10 years.

First, partially exposed with sapphire on the 2010 iteration and then later, on the 2014 Hommage, with a smaller hours and minutes subdial and now, on the Roger Dubuis Excalibur Spider, almost completely exposed with the Spider’s “starburst” bridges; and therein lies the appeal, you get to watch the dance of the minute repeater components dance to its musicality when you activate the complication.
The Excalibur Spider Unique Series is one of the very few minute repeater mechanisms to be housed in a carbon case and Roger Dubuis is likely the ONLY brand to have endowed such a classical complication with an adrenaline charged design. Mixing auditory pleasure with visual intrigue, the face of Roger Dubuis’ new minute repeater flying tourbillon is visually punctuated with 3 different function indicators.

The first is the striking indicator, the second indicates whether the crown is in winding or time-setting mode and finally, the All or Nothing indicator shows whether you’ve pushed the minute repeater button enough to activate the striking mechanism: hours, quarters and minutes is generally composed of two chimes, one deep for the hours, one high-pitched for the minutes.
Ultra-exclusive, Roger Dubuis’ latest automatic minute repeater flying tourbillon with twin winding rotors (for exceptional 72 hours power reserve and winding efficiency) is a unique piece but not in the conventional sense – that is to say, there’s only one model for the Excalibur Spider Unique Series in green but if one were to order a bespoke commission in another colour or aesthetic, Roger Dubuis would create another unique Roger Dubuis Excalibur Spider to your specifications.