DB16 De Bethune Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar

It is universally understood that De Bethune make spaceships for the wrist. Except, they haven’t always. In fact, the first decade was largely extremely classical with Roman or Breguet-like numerals, pomme or feuille hands, and remarkably normal cases. Collectors are starting to talk about early De Bethune with the kind of hard-line separation that Journe people draw around brass calibres. This is the DB16, a Perpetual Calendar Tourbillon that straddles both eras of De Bethune, the handoff from simple round ogival cases to, well, extraterrestrial rotating lugs and lasers.

The DB16 built on the calendar works of the brand’s first Perpetual Calendar, the creatively-named DB15. The DB15, released 2004, debuted the world’s first spherical moonphase, painstakingly crafted. All this effort was a party to celebrate what was De Bethune’s first in-house calibre. The DB16 just poured jet fuel on the fire in 2013 with the same silhouette, a 499-component dead-beat seconds tourbillon with all the above perpetual calendar credentials. Plus, that escapement is made from silicon in a titanium cage, no less. It’s madness, a ground-up spaceship calibre in what was still a somewhat classic ogival lug case: the old shaking hands with the new. And hidden tourbillons are just better.

Since the GovBox16 Company took a controlling interesting in De Bethune, early and truly independent De Bethune has already started to see a rise. The work and production hasn’t even changed that much, it’s just the way collectors are. I don’t think a single watch unites the early years with what DB have become as clearly as the DB15 and DB16 have. Both had firsts that the brand has since built upon. The DB16 is just packing more of a signature DB caseback experience. I’m very interested in how these watches will come to be framed in decades to come. One hasn’t ever gone to auction and, as far as I’m aware of, this is the only the second example to trade hands publicly. The early DB years are worth watching. Impecunity creates ingenuity. And ingenuity, in posterity, matters. Long live the early DB QPs: spaceship-ish.

This example appears great, lightly worn and not too much more. There’s a light scratch here and there, some signs of wear, but crisp hallmarks and the original full set.