5 Hands, No Waiting, the De Bethune DB29

To title this article, I had the shorten the name a bit, because it is quite a mouthful.  The full name of the watch is the DB29 Maxichrono Tourbillon, and there is a lot going on with this timepiece.  From the name alone, we know that the watch has two complications, a chronograph and a tourbillon.  Then looking at those lovely blued hands and the sexy curved dial, we see no subdials, so all the time keeping and chrono functions are built off a single axis.

When you flip the rose gold watch over (if I only I was actually in Basel to flip it over myself, you get a truly exhibition caseback, where the matching rose gold caseback is hinged and opens to revel the very detailed and complicated in-house Calibre DB2039 movement.  Hand wound, with a 5-day power reserve, there is no rotor to peer around.  But let’s get back to the dial.  Five, count them, five hands all moving on a central axis.  The Breuget styled hour and minute hands are flame blued and hand polished , as are the stick styled chronograph hour and second hands.  The chrono minute hand is finished in rose gold.

The face is 3-dimensional, with curved surfaces to aid reading if the watch is angled away from you.  The outer-most ring provides the chronograph minutes and seconds, which the innermost ring is tot track the 24-hour chronograph hand.  Standard time is read off the middle ring (though you can peek to the out ring for minutes if you like).  A single pusher, coaxial with the crown (of course) operates the chronograph and the package sits securely on your wrist on a extra-supple alligator leather strap.

The movement is, or course, quite impressive, with 3 columns wheels, a self-regulating twin barrel, a silicon/white gold balance wheel – balance-spring with flat terminal curve, a silicon escape wheel, and a silicon/titanium tourbillon beating at 36,000 vph.  All of this is packed into a 30mm package, hand crafted, finished and decorated, and sporting a mere 49 jewels.  De Bethune.com

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