Daniel Roth Papillon Chronograph watch officially revealed
Celebrating the 5th anniversary of their landmark Papillon watch, which in its own turn itself celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Daniel Roth brand, the Swiss watch makers have recently presented their new take on the famous and much adored timepiece.
Featuring the same Ellipsocurvex case and a pair of patented lozenge-shaped pivoting-head retrograde minute hands, the new Daniel Roth Papillon Chronograph watch is now powered by a mechanical self-winding Frederic Piguet column-wheel chronograph caliber.
The new engine replaces the ultra-thin self-winding Girard-Perregaux movement that ticked inside that famous 2005 Papillon Chronograph model.
As the company says in its press release, the Swiss watchmaker buys blank movements from Frederic Piguet and then finishes and decorates the ebauches solely in-house.
When the movement is ready, it is further equipped with Daniel Roth’s own complication module that drives this “semi-retrograde” minute hands.
As you may gather from the photo, both hands are constantly in motion rotating slowly on a skeletonized disk around their common center of gravity.
When one hand reaches its 3 o’clock position on the disk (“00″ mark on the minute track,) it instantly rotates 90 degrees clockwise and becomes a “pointer” of the minute hand. At the same time, another hand that’s just passed the “60″ mark, rotates the same 90 degrees, “retracting” itself into the rotating disk.
That’s why the whole design is called “semi-retrograde”: the minute hand passes only half a dial, but doesn’t return to its starting position in a single swift jump, like it is done in real retrograde watches.
The design not only makes the timekeeper’s dial more entertaining to look at, but must also save some energy that would otherwise be lost transporting the minute hand counterclockwise to its “00″ position.
Lacking the shield-like cover that hid the action of the pivoting minute hands, the new timepiece from Daniel Roth looks much more refined, partly due to a guilloche Clous de Paris motif on its face and the famous Cotes de Geneve pattern on the silver-colored dial base.
Although the new edition of the Daniel Roth Papillon Chronograph watch will be limited to only 250 units, I highly doubt that the Swiss manufacture will have a hard time selling the stock.
Daniel Roth Papillon Chronograph watch specification :
Price range: Around $50,000-$60,000
Movement: Frederic Piguet column-wheel chronograph caliber
Complications: Date, chronograph, retrograde minute hands
Power reserve: N/A
Case material: White, yellow, or red gold, a flat sapphire back
Case diameter: 43 x 46 mm
Case height: N/A
Dial: Silver or ruthenium-colored dial with transparent counters and markings
Water resistance: N/A
Strap: Black, blue or brown crocodile leather strap
Crystal: Sapphire crystal
Evgueni Matoussevitch in Swiss WatchesTags: 43 mm, 46 mm, Chronograph, Daniel Roth, date, ellipsocurvex, Frederic Piguet, Papillon, red gold, retrograde, white gold
