Early Production C187 Daniel Roth Double Face Tourbillon

What Pre-Souscription is the Journe, this is to Daniel Roth. Those who know the master’s early work will notice, this dial is a little unusual. First, it’s Clous de Paris and not pinstripe guilloché. Second and more notably, the plaques engraved with ‘Daniel Roth’ and ‘Numero’ are in contrasting yellow gold. The contrast between the white gold guilloché and yellow gold plaques places this C187 as a rather interesting piece of very, very early production. It looks just a bit different, but that likely means it’s a super interesting chronology.

Daniel Roth launched as a brand in 1988 and just took a short year or two to bring something to market. This happened first with a Souscription-like run (only for one client) of 24 Tourbillons around 1990 ordered by Asprey. These feature the Asprey name on the left plaque and Roth on back, which is highly unusual. It is unknown whether these are the first ever Tourbillons made by Daniel Roth the brand, but they’re likely the first sold publicly. And they’re all, usually, monometallic dials. Yet, it is known some examples were done prior to this Asprey batch, for testing and developing purpose. The examples known to be made prior share this bimetal dial. Jean Arnault believes these dials are not likely the prototypes, but a very early batch of production similar to Pre-Souscription Journe. And Mr. Arnualt does know a thing or two about Roth. After quite a lot of asking from the selling party, he was the only party to know of or have seen this style of dial before.

The C187 and it’s Tourbillon is the core of Daniel Roth collecting. While technically a Lemania ébauche, it’s understood Roth actively developed the majority of the 387 calibre for Lemania while at Breguet. On the front, it’s a very Breguet-inspired and minimal Tourbillon presentation. On the other front, you get the utility of a date and power reserve. In its day, this was the only COSC tourbillon. Only a handful of the Asprey examples have ever surfaced, always with very low case numbers. This is, for collectors, a very interesting and comparably early example. Much of the earliest years of Roth remain still somewhat opaque to collectors (if anyone reading has insight, it’s always welcome). Yet, whatever comes to light in future, this is quite the example.

This example is worn and has seen life, but not a ton of polishing. It shows some light marks although it could be lighting, hard to tell in images along. Hallmarks look great and I would believe the case hasn't been touched. It comes as watch only from a well-regarded Hong Kong retailer.