De Bethune DB25 Perpetual Calendar DB25QPARS1 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, timosso at the1916company.com, for purchase pricing and availability questions concerning this watch. This is a model I believe launched in 2011 from Debuttoon, one of the more conservative styles, the DB25 Perpetual Calendre Contient Perpetuel. In rose gold here, 44 millimeters in diameter, 12.4 millimeters thick, 51.5 from lug tip to lug tip, with a 24 millimeter spacing between the lugs when you throw it on the wrist, and my wrist is 16 centimeters in circumference. It fits well, though there is a 40 millimeter version of the watch if you want to go smaller, but on a wrist my size or larger, you've got the option of wearing this size or the smaller one depending on preference. If your wrist is any smaller than mine, you're going to want to go with the 40. This one in 44 millimeters, it's right out to the edge of my wrist, but it's not beyond. You can see that down the barrel, over the top shot, and the cuff shot. It's a big watch. It is a fairly thin watch and it will fit underneath the dress cuff. 16 centimeters circumference, wrists and up. You can see here the strap is large, rectangular, symmetrical scale alligator leather, a matte finish, a little bit of a distressed grain in medium blue. You can see sheer cut sides, a monotone stitch. The edges have been lacquered for refinement. It is a watch box by Jean Rousseau, but you know what? Jean Rousseau makes the OEM straps for Debuttoon. This is a roundabout way of getting a Jean Rousseau strap, the OEM manufacturer, albeit by watch box, which I guess makes this a vintage strap because they will be making no more of those. Calfskin on the bottom, you can see that it is a Jean Rousseau strap in outstanding condition and it's paired with a conservative pin buckle that is Debuttoon branded. In general, the buckles at Debuttoon match the character of the watch. Open and buttress-like and prismatic for the 27s and the 28s and then a more conventional buckle for a more conventional case. Round case, solid dial, fixed lugs. The lugs are slightly evacuated and you can see that there are little bullet tips at their ends. The last styling vestige of the original Debuttoon DB1 chronograph, the company's first product from 2002, that little bullet tip lug design has stuck with most models in Debuttoon's history to the present day. Unbranded crown because Denis Flageollet, the watchmaking lead at Debuttoon, is a classicist and classical crowns would not be branded, though we do have knurling and drilling on the side. Taking a quick look, many little pusher adjusters to correct the calendar, though it should be mentioned that there is a quick set mechanism for adjusting the date and the month. Now, the timepiece is all Debuttoon as Debuttoon makes its own cases, dials, and movements. So all this case craft and dial guilloche is done in-house. You can see the guilloche rosette from the center. We have a pointer style date. We have a little titanium plate that's polished and then fired surrounding the leap year phase indicator and then above that a spherical moon phase that's one half white palladium, one half blued steel, and it has an adjustment interval of once every 122 years that mechanism is patented. We have a day, date, month, perpetual calendar. Again, this little shaded window changes color for the leap year. The dial is very subtly printed blue on white, so it's silver white. We have this toroidal outer track that has a knurling on its edge and then everything's printed blue. So we've got a chemin d'oeuvre for our minutes to be read and then we've got a watchmaker's roman numeral four right there. You can also see how the hands have been rolled so that they clear the moon phase and you probably have a better sense of its three-dimensional qualities when you view from this angle. And of course, being a perpetual calendar does not need to be corrected until the year 2100. Out back, we have a version of the De Bethune in-house twin barrel automatic winding movement, five days of power reserve, four hertz speed rate. The movement has a large 30 millimeter diameter. We have a precious metal mass and a fired blue titanium rotor with four different shock protection springs with anti-friction jewels set into them. This is a patented shock protection system by Denis Flageollet. The idea being to have the broadest possible rotor, so it has a lot of polar moment or turning force, but you don't want it torquing torsionally from side to side. So these little springs help to prevent that unwanted motion. We have one, two, three shock protection springs. The one at center is zinc block. The flanking ones are steel. That's called triple parachute. It's patented. It exists for durability, so you don't break the watch, but also for precision because these flanking springs can take up a lot of the shock that would otherwise unseat the balance staff pivot from its cup jewel. We have a balance that is a patented design. It's a yoke style, non-annular in blue titanium with platinum masses designed to reduce the impact of temperature change on timing first and foremost, maximize the percentage of total mass in the rim, and then to a slight degree, reduce the impact of aerodynamic drag on timing. We have a flat hairspring. De Bethune does not make the hairspring alloy, but it does have a patent on that flat hairspring terminal curve, which is shaped in-house. They actually take a flat hairspring, they cut off the terminal curve, shape it manually, clamp it back together, and then they get a flat hairspring that's thin like a flat hairspring and shock resistant like a flat hairspring, but breathes concentrically like an overcoil for positional timing stability. You can see we've got satination, we've got snailing, we've got media blast, we've got polished screw heads, we've got beveling on the parachute shock protection springs, again, all this with a five-day power reserve, and it is a perpetual calendar with twin barrels, which are also patented. So at least half a dozen patents protecting this watch. 30 meters water resistant, so splashes only don't take it swimming, but for all other occasions, game on. Reach out to Tim Masso at the1916company.com for purchase and pricing details.