A Gem-Set De Bethune DB1 Monopusher Chronograph, In Yellow Gold

This gem-set DB1 may seem full of classical watch design, but in many respects it was also the shape of things to come.

Jack Forster5 Min ReadJan 27 2025

De Bethune was founded by Denis Flageollet and David Zanetta in 2002, and since then, the company’s design language has developed at a very rapid pace, with signature elements like articulated lugs, the spherical moonphase, and extensive use of heat blued or yellow heat-tempered titanium (as seen in the DB28 Yellow Tones) having become what collectors and enthusiasts most strongly identify with the company’s production. However, in the beginning, De Bethune’s designs were, in comparison with the bold experimentation of its later models, relatively restrained and very much informed by classical watchmaking codes. Those codes did not disappear from De Bethune’s later designs although since 2002, they have been reinterpreted and reinvented, but I’ve always felt that part of the reason for De Bethune’s later success was the underlying presence of a respect for, and appreciation of, traditional fine watchmaking.

Today’s pick for A Watch A Week (which will now publish on Mondays, moving ahead) is one of the earliest De Bethune watches ever made, and part of De Bethune’s Historical Collection – a DB1 monopusher chronograph, with a single digit serial number, in yellow gold, and set with brilliant cut diamonds on the lugs and deep blue baguette cut sapphires on the case flank.

The DB1 is in terms of size, a precursor of the larger and more extroverted case designs to be found in the company’s later production. The “ogival” lugs (“ogive” refers to a gothic, or pointed arch) which are still found in De Bethune’s watches are seen here in the very first watch the company ever produced. The DB1 was made in quite small numbers, and in just two known case metals – 28 pieces in white gold, and 21 in yellow gold.

The dial has grain d’orge (barley grain) guilloché, with Roman numerals for the hours and an outer minute track. There’s a central chronograph seconds hand and two registers – on the left, running seconds, and on the right, a 30 minute counter. The hands are heat-blued, including the Breguet hour and minute hands, the needle-fine center chronograph seconds hand, and both hands in the subdials. The overall dimensions of the watch – 42mm x 8.8mm – as well as the guilloché dial, typefaces, and general layout, are reminiscent of high-grade vintage pocket watches, and the pocket watch influence would go on to be much more explicit in 2005. This was the year that De Bethune released the DBS, which was the first De Bethune to feature the inverted movement architecture (with the balance and delta-shaped mainspring barrel bridges on the dial side) and 12:00 crown still seen today in the DBD collection.

The movement has a very interesting history behind it – it was originally designed by Flageollet and F.P. Journe, who along with Vianney Halter, were the owners of a company called THA, (Techniques Horlogères Appliquées). The movement was first used by, and was developed for, Cartier, which used it in the Cartier Paris Collection Privée, Chronographe Monopoussoir (monopusher chronograph) which has like so many CPCP timepieces, has gone on to become a highly desirable collectible. The movement as used by Cartier was called the 045MC, and the version of the movement used by De Bethune in the DB1 was slightly different, including the use of more hand-finishing, although it remained a column wheel controlled chronograph with a tilting pinion chronograph clutch.

As a rare example of a single serial number DB1 in yellow gold, this is already about as exclusive and historically important as DB collecting gets, but the gem-setting is really finely done as well – relatively subtle, as horological gem-setting goes, but beautifully executed (gem-setting at De Bethune is done in-house).

The brilliant cut, round diamonds are set into tiny recesses in the lugs, with metal claws raised around them to secure them; the gold is raised by hand after the diamonds are set in place, and they’re graduated in size so that they follow the complex curves of the lug geometry.

The blue sapphires are channel set, along the case middle, and their deep blue color echoes that of the heat-blued hands.

The quality of the gem setting’s remarkable – if you’d like to find out more about the basics of horological gem-setting and what goes into it (it’s more involved than you might think) check out our Jewelry Editor-at-Large Eleonor Piccioto’s video on our YouTube channel, where she gets into the fundamentals of how gemstones are used in watchmaking, and some of the challenges involved. In its own way, horological gem setting is as demanding a craft as watchmaking itself, or casemaking, enameling, or any of the other horological decorative arts.

This DB1 is currently part of the company’s Historical Collection. We can however source watches from the Historical Collection for interested collectors – any DB1 is of course, a rare and highly collectible watch but this one is, you might say, primus inter pares; first among equals.

View our collection of pre-owned De Bethune watches at The 1916 Company.