Best Roger Dubuis Watches: Models, Value & Care

Roger Dubuis is one of the few Swiss watch brands that built its whole identity around breaking the rules of traditional watchmaking, and that choice still shapes every watch it makes today. While older houses like Patek Philippe or Vacheron Constantin lean on centuries of quiet, classic design, Roger Dubuis does the opposite. Its watches are big, loud, and visibly mechanical, often through a skeletonized dial that shows off the moving parts inside. That approach has earned the brand a small but devoted following among collectors who want something different from a typical watch collection, and it has also made Roger Dubuis one of the most talked-about names to come out of Geneva in the last thirty years.

Roger Dubuis History and Origins

Roger Dubuis founded his company in Geneva in 1995 with business partner Carlos Dias, after already spending decades mastering the most difficult parts of watchmaking. Mr. Dubuis was not a young upstart when he started the brand. He was 57 years old, an age when many watchmakers would be thinking about retirement instead of a new career chapter.

His path to that point was long. Dubuis began his career at Longines in the late 1950s, then spent 14 years developing complications for Patek Philippe before opening his own workshop in 1980, where he took on complication projects for other watch brands. A “complication” in watch terms just means any function beyond simply telling the time, like a calendar, a chronograph, or a tourbillon. One of his proudest achievements from this period was co-patenting a biretrograde perpetual calendar with watchmaker Jean-Marc Wiederrecht in 1989, a mechanism built for Harry Winston that was the first of its kind ever fitted to a wristwatch. By the time he met Carlos Dias, a designer who had worked for Franck Muller, Dubuis already had the technical skill of a master watchmaker. Dias brought the bold visual style. Together they launched the brand under the name Société Genevoise des Montres, or SOGEM, before it became known simply as Roger Dubuis, and their first two collections were named Sympathie and Hommage.

The company built its own Manufacture, a term for a factory that makes its own movements in-house, on the outskirts of Geneva in Meyrin in 2001. By 2006, Roger Dubuis had developed 28 of its own proprietary calibers, all carrying a rare Swiss certification called the Poinçon de Genève. In 2008, the Richemont Group, the luxury conglomerate that also owns Cartier and IWC, bought 60% of the company, then purchased the remaining 40% in 2016. Roger Dubuis himself passed away in 2017, but the brand he built kept its name and its unusual design language.

What Makes Roger Dubuis Watches Unique

Two things set Roger Dubuis apart from almost every other Swiss watch brand: its certification standard and its design philosophy. Understanding both explains why the watches look and cost the way they do.

Every Single Watch Carries the Geneva Seal

Roger Dubuis is the only watch manufacture in the world where 100% of its production carries the Poinçon de Genève, commonly called the Geneva Seal. This is a strict quality mark that checks how a watch movement is finished and decorated, not just how well it keeps time. Of the roughly 20 million watches produced in Switzerland every year, only about 24,000 earn this seal. Most brands that use the Geneva Seal only apply it to select models. Roger Dubuis applies it to everything it makes, which is a genuinely rare commitment in the watch industry.

Getting every watch certified this way is not easy or cheap. The brand’s CEO has confirmed that reaching 100% certification requires roughly 30 to 40 percent more finishing work than a standard watch would need. That extra labor is one reason Roger Dubuis watches carry higher prices than a lesser-known name typically would, and it helps explain the brand’s positioning relative to others in the same price range.

The Geneva Seal does not just look at a finished watch. It requires the watch to be assembled, adjusted, and cased entirely within the canton of Geneva, using specific hand-finishing techniques on nearly every visible and hidden part.

Big, Bold, and Meant to Be Noticed

Roger Dubuis watches are built to be seen, not hidden under a cuff. The brand favors large cases, often 42mm to 47mm, skeletonized dials that expose the gears and springs inside, and dramatic details like double tourbillons or hand-carved sculptures on the movement itself. This is a deliberate choice. Where a dress watch tries to disappear quietly into a suit, a Roger Dubuis piece is meant to start a conversation.

Four Collections, Four Personalities

Roger Dubuis groups its collections around four imagined characters, and each one explains the mood a given watch is going for. The Excalibur represents the Warrior, built around strength and discipline. The Velvet represents the Diva, built around elegance and glamour. The brand has also used the Monégasque to represent the Player, a nod to boldness and wit, and the Pulsion to represent the Venturer, a line built around freedom and speed. Not every one of these lines is in active production at all times, but the four-character idea still shapes how new watches get designed and named today.

Popular Roger Dubuis Watch Lines

Roger Dubuis organizes its watches into a handful of clear collections, and each one reflects a different side of the brand’s personality.

Excalibur

The Excalibur is the collection most people picture when they think of Roger Dubuis, and it has been the brand’s flagship line since it launched. Roger Dubuis first introduced the Excalibur in 2005, and the collection quickly became known as a pioneer of contemporary skeleton movements, built around the Knights of the Round Table theme. Early standout pieces included a double tourbillon skeleton movement and a minute repeater tourbillon, both technically difficult mechanisms that few brands attempt even today.

The line has kept pushing forward since then. In 2011, Roger Dubuis released the Quatuor RD101 movement, which used four separate balance springs and five differentials to help fight the effects of gravity on timekeeping accuracy. By 2017, the Excalibur received a version made almost entirely from carbon composite, including the dial, movement plate, bridges, and case. To mark the brand’s 30th anniversary in 2025, Roger Dubuis released an eight-piece Excalibur Grande Complication in pink gold, combining a perpetual calendar, minute repeater, and flying tourbillon in one 684-component movement. Its minute repeater strikes hours in a low tone and minutes in a high tone using two different pitches for the quarter hours, a chime pattern historically nicknamed the “devil’s chord” for its unusual, dissonant sound. Among the brand’s collections, the Excalibur remains its most technically ambitious line.

Excalibur Spider and the Lamborghini Partnership

Some of the most recognizable modern Roger Dubuis watches come from its motorsport partnerships. Since 2016, the brand has produced watches celebrating Lamborghini’s latest car models, and each of these Lamborghini editions runs on its own dedicated movement rather than sharing a caliber with the rest of the lineup. Roger Dubuis also partners with Pirelli, and certain straps in this line incorporate rubber compound taken directly from actual Pirelli tires, alongside composite materials and shapes borrowed from supercar design. These watches lean into an aggressive, angular look that mirrors the cars that inspired them, and they tend to be the most divisive designs in the brand’s lineup, loved by fans of automotive style and considered too extreme by traditional watch collectors.

Velvet

The Velvet collection is Roger Dubuis’s dedicated women’s line, and it swaps the brand’s aggressive edges for a softer, more jewelry-forward look. The cases taper into slender lugs, and the hour markers use an elongated, stretched-out version of Roman numerals rather than the blocky style seen on most dress watches, and every piece in the collection is certified by the Poinçon de Genève, just like the men’s lines. Many Velvet models are heavily set with diamonds, and the collection often uses the brand’s signature tonneau, or barrel-shaped, case rather than a plain circle. This is where Roger Dubuis leans furthest into fine jewelry territory rather than pure horology.

Notable Roger Dubuis Models

Beyond the collection names, a handful of specific models come up often among collectors and give a good sense of the brand’s range:

• Excalibur Monobalancier — One of the more accessible entry points into the collection, built around a single balance wheel visible through a skeletonized dial, showing the mechanism without the added complexity of a tourbillon.
• Excalibur Spider Huracán — Built in partnership with Lamborghini and inspired by the Huracán supercar, this piece uses a carbon skeleton case and motorsport-style color accents.
• Excalibur Aventador S — Another Lamborghini collaboration, styled after the Aventador S model, with angular case lines that echo the car’s exterior panels.
• Excalibur Spider Pirelli — Pairs a skeletonized case with a strap made from genuine Pirelli tire rubber, one of the more literal automotive crossovers in the lineup.
• Velvet by Massaro — Part of the Velvet collection’s five-persona concept, this model was created with input from Massaro, a historic French shoemaking house, and leans into a haute-couture aesthetic rather than a purely mechanical one.

Preference among these varies widely, with some collectors drawn to the motorsport-inspired pieces and others favoring the brand’s more classic skeleton designs.

How Much Roger Dubuis Watches Cost

Roger Dubuis sits firmly in the luxury watch tier, with new prices generally starting in the tens of thousands of dollars and climbing sharply from there. The entry point into the Excalibur line, an automatic model with a skeleton dial, runs around $60,000, while the most complicated pieces, such as the double flying tourbillon models, can exceed $500,000. Limited-edition motorsport collaborations sit somewhere in between; a limited-edition Excalibur Spider Flyback Chronograph made with Lamborghini retailed for roughly $107,500 when it launched.

Prices across the collection tend to fall into a few clear tiers:

Watch type	Approximate starting price
Entry Excalibur (automatic, skeleton dial)	$50,000–$70,000
Excalibur Spider / Lamborghini editions	$55,000–$300,000
Double or multi-tourbillon Excalibur	$300,000–$500,000+
Velvet (women’s, diamond-set)	Varies widely by gem content

These figures are approximate. Actual retail prices vary with materials, limited-edition status, and currency, and authorized dealers remain the most reliable source for current pricing.

Should You Buy New or Pre-Owned?

Buying pre-owned can make Roger Dubuis noticeably more attainable, since these watches are produced in smaller numbers than mass-market luxury brands and the secondary market reflects that. A few factors matter more than usual with this particular brand:

• Box and papers. Because Roger Dubuis makes fewer watches overall, provenance and paperwork carry extra weight for future resale value.
• Service history. Complicated movements like tourbillons need specialized servicing, and not every watchmaker is trained on Roger Dubuis calibers.
• Poinçon de Genève markings. Every genuine piece should carry this certification, so its absence or inconsistency is a red flag worth investigating.
• Limited-edition numbers. Many Roger Dubuis pieces are numbered limited editions, so edition size affects how rare, and how valuable, a particular watch is.

Roger Dubuis Watch Care Tips

These watches combine delicate hand-finishing with genuinely complex mechanics, so extra care goes a long way. Strong magnets pose a particular risk, since skeletonized movements expose more of the mechanism to potential interference. Servicing is best handled by an authorized Roger Dubuis service center rather than a general watchmaker, because the intricate calibers, especially tourbillon models, require specific training to open and repair correctly. A dry, padded case offers the safest storage when the watch is not being worn, and extreme temperature swings are worth avoiding, since they can affect lubrication inside the movement over time.

Carbon-composite Excalibur models and the Lamborghini or Pirelli editions with specialty rubber straps call for extra caution with cleaning products, since these materials react differently to chemicals than steel or leather do. Alcohol-based cleaners and household solvents are best avoided; a soft, slightly damp cloth is usually enough to keep both the case and strap looking sharp.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Roger Dubuis has built a genuinely unusual place in Swiss watchmaking by refusing to play it safe, backing up its bold designs with a certification standard that almost no other brand can match. Whether that appeals to a given collector comes down to taste. Buyers seeking a watch that disappears quietly under a cuff will find little of interest here, but those drawn to mechanical showmanship built to the strictest finishing standard in Geneva have exactly that in the Excalibur and Velvet lines.