De Bethune DB25 QP Automatique (DB25QPATIS4) De Bethune Watch Review

Hi, this is Tim of The 1916 Company. Welcome and thanks for logging on. If you love this watch, email me, Tim Aso, at the1916company.com for purchase and pricing and availability questions concerning this watch. Today, we discuss a 2021 update of a model originally launched in 2011. So what you're looking at here is the Dibitoon DB25 Perpetual Calendar, but in grade 5 titanium. This combination of grade 5 tie with a green dial was launched at Dubai Watch Week in 2021. Still 44 millimeters in diameter. It's much lighter than in the past. So I measured 44 in diameter, 12.8 millimeters thick and 51.5 from lug to lug with a 24 millimeter spacing between the lugs. We'll throw it on my wrist, which is 16 centimeters in circumference and it wears just fine. There is of course a 40 millimeter in titanium available from Dibitoon. If you need a smaller watch, I recommend that one. If your wrist is my size or larger, you can wear the 16 centimeters circumference and up and it's not as thick as it seems. At 12.8, it will slide under a dress cup. The strap is burly and rugged. You can see black textile on the top, a gusset sewn in to prevent gouging of the holes, calfskin on the bottom, a Dibitoon factory strap by the OEM supplier, Jean Rousseau of Paris, handmade, pull tab spring bars. You can pop the strap out of the case without a tool. And then a matching grade 5 titanium buckle here that actually echoes the design of the lugs. And that's usually the case with Dibitoon watches. So the lugs are fixed. This isn't a 26, 27, or 28. They're not going anywhere. They're not spring loaded. They're open, airy, and graceful, but fundamentally they're fixed lugs. We have a little bullet tip shape at the end of the lugs. A long time styling trademark of Dibitoon dating back to the first product, the DB1 Chronograph of 2002. All this is polished grade 5 titanium. And I can tell you that in my experience, polished grade 5 titanium does a better job of hiding damage marks and wear than any other base metal. Unless you're going with a true hard metal setup like tegament or ice hardening, or you're going with ceramic, this is the ticket for a watch that's not going to show wear and tear. Denis Flageolet, co-founder and still the watchmaking lead at Dibitoon is a classicist. So he tends to use unbranded crowns. And that's what we have here. Dibitoon, a fully integrated manufacturer making every part of the watch, the dial, the case and the movement. And that is the state of affairs in my hand here. The dial is green with silver printing. We have radially arrayed Arabic and Roman numerals, including the watchmakers for leaf hands at center. You can see this as a perpetual calendar. So no need to correct until the year 2100. We have a spherical moon phase that only requires one correction every 122 years. Then below that, the leap year phase indicator, you could see it sits on a bed of black zirconium. Now there is a quick set system here for adjusting the date. And by quick setting the date, you drive the month. We have push adjusters on the flank for the day, as well as the moon phase. The moon phase is one half white palladium and one half black zirconium. Then you can see a little gold star inlays. Of course, the perpetual calendar is something you don't want to have to reset too often. And to that end, this watch has an automatic movement, twin barrels, self-adjusting, a patented feature. Five days of power reserve. We have a very long lever arm for the rotor. The movement's 30 millimeters in diameter. By having a long arm and a heavy white gold mass, we have a very efficient winder. But to prevent it from torquing from side to side, we've got this quadruple cantilever spring. That's a patented element created by Denis. And each one has three anti-friction jewels inset. We also have triple pair chute shock protection for the balance. That's one, two, three. And you can see that the springs for triple pair chute are both satinated and micro beveled with all the screw heads here polished. Triple pair chute helps to preserve the balance staff and prevent damage, but also helps to improve timekeeping. It also has a chronometric purpose. The hairspring curve, the balance design, both patented as well. Like the twin self-adjusting barrels, like the spherical moon phase, like the shock protected rotor, triple pair chute, the balance, and the hairspring curve, all patented. And the shakeout for all of that is a better timekeeper. There's also a silicone escape and well, partially silicone escape wheel of Debitoon's own design to reduce mass and the need for lubrication. It's all four Hertz beat rate, and this is a 47 jewel movement with a mind-boggling 425 parts. So very complicated. You can also see a combination of media blast on the recesses of the bridge, satination on the springs at center, snailing across the tops along with the polished screws. And then everything that's blue on this case back is fired blue titanium. It's all 30 meters water resistant. So again, five days of power reserve and a perpetual calendar, all in grade five titanium and a full manufactured product from a company that made only about 330 watches last year. So reach out to team also at the1916company.com for purchase and pricing details.