Daniel Roth 'Mid 1st Series'

Overall Condition: Great condition overall. Case shows light wear throughout. Dial and handset are in great condition.

Before independent watchmaking became an industry unto itself, Daniel Roth was helping define what it could look like. After formative years at Audemars Piguet and a remarkable fourteen-year tenure at Breguet, Roth established his namesake manufacture in 1989, becoming one of the earliest modern watchmakers to put his own name, aesthetic, and ideas directly on the dial.

The Reference 2157, appearing in catalogs around 1992–1993, comes from this fascinating early period. Collectors have come to classify it as part of Roth’s “Mid-1st Series,” alongside the slightly larger Reference 2167. While conceived with more compact, broadly wearable proportions than pieces such as the 2187 Tourbillon and 2147 Chronograph, it retains the design codes that make early Daniel Roth watches immediately recognizable.

Most obvious is Roth’s signature double-ellipse case, a shape somewhere between a rectangle, an oval, and something entirely his own. The dial is equally distinctive, with its vertically striped Ligné decoration, circular Roman-numeral chapter ring, dotted minute track, and blued hands. This particular example is especially appealing in yellow gold, which gives the idiosyncratic case architecture an appropriately rich early-1990s presence. A navy alligator leather strap keeps the focus squarely on that unmistakable dial and case.

Today, Daniel Roth’s earliest independent work occupies an increasingly important place in modern horological history. The 2157 is particularly interesting: less complicated than the celebrated tourbillons and chronographs, perhaps, but an unusually pure expression of Roth’s visual language from the period when that language was still being invented. Early independent watchmaking, distilled to its essentials. So elegant!