Horological Meandering

Equation of Space
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Something for the weekend: Daniel Roth Perpetual Moonphase

Having never owned a Daniel Roth before - and knowing the complex history of the brand in between its founding after the Breguet years and the departure of Roth around 2000, I have been keen to pick up a piece from the period for a while.



But it’s hard to pin down - Roth is, nowadays, not exactly undiscovered or overlooked, with top pieces from the era going for up to $200k. In addition, there are many appealing references - the chronographs, the extra-plat time only pieces, the tourbillons - any of them would be a great addition.

Trade offs, then - as I have said before, it’s the core of collecting (and, ultimately, what makes it rewarding).

I wanted something that would tick a few boxes: white metal (which usually means steel or WG, with Roth), something predating him leaving the brand, a complication that I don’t already have (tourbillon, say) but also not a chrono (there are too many contenders for that spot/those spots, on balance).

That left the retrograde, jumping hour and perpetual.

The first two of these will, again, likely be filled by others - the Tank a Guichets and Gerald Genta’s own-brand efforts are strong contenders there, for me; the retrograde could be taken up by many makers in due course (Genta, again, not least among them).

In addition, the Daniel Roth QP has an interesting story and additional details that appealed: when building it, Roth decided that he needed help and got Philippe Dufour involved: among other things, they were trying to solve the issue of generating enough power to make the windows instantly switch over at midnight but finding, at first, that they were not succeeding - resulting in a first version that had pointers for day and month, as well as date and leap year:



This got updated soon after they managed to square the circle, resulting in the - to me - more appealing version with the cut out windows that they had planned for all along:



My version is the update of that one, with the moonphase added - while this is just on the edge of becoming too busy, I think it works well, leaving enough negative space around the dial and subdial.

Being an early number in white gold, my version dates firmly from the 1990s, before Roth’s departure and during his involvement - still carrying all the hallmarks of his work and design language: the font and application on his name, the vertical hand-guilloché grey ruthenium dial, the blued hands - and, needless to say, that stepped “ellipsocurvex” case shape.



The movement is the in-house DR114, based on a Girard-Perregaux GP3000 ébauche (with modules built for the complications) is nicely decorated and with the original 18K gold rotor (which became a less-appealing bimetallic one after Roth left, presumably to save cost). The original crown and the buckle are unadorned with excess detail (the former as a nod to Breguet crowns; the latter presumably to keep things more simple where they can be on an already-complex watch).



It is a joy to wear - perfectly sized, thin, easily legible in all respects, with symmetrical hidden pushers for the day, date, month and moonphase. It is complex and sophisticated but without being attention grabbing.

Have a lovely weekend, friends!