Pessoa00 shares a deeply personal journey back to Audemars Piguet, reflecting on past experiences with a Royal Oak Chronograph and the evolving landscape of high horology collecting. His post details the financial and strategic considerations that led him to re-engage with AP, offering a candid look at the challenges and renewed excitement of building a collection in today's market.
A 39 RO Chrono was my 1st high horology watch some 20 years ago. I used it daily for about 2 years but at some point got frustrated for so many scratches that sold it and went to other brands. In my collecting journey I still had a couple of offshores but, for different reasons, non lasted long.
In the meantime AP changed its sales strategy, which left my country without representation leaving the brand away from my radar for a long time.
Lately I began feeling that my collection journey was about to end (or at least slow considerably) because as it matures it starts getting harder and harder to reach to pieces that add some value mostly because of the crazy prices some watches have reached and also because the “game” of buying something less hyped to be able to get something more hyped is getting out of control. As an example, in Patek, Calatravas are mostly above 40k and the few complications I like are all above 60k, some above 100k. Even though I have a good relation with the local boutique, to get a 5726/1a I would need to buy a perpetual which would turn the total cost upwards of 180k. These are numbers that to my reality stop making much sense.
Last week I received an invitation to an event in Barcelona and with the above in mind I though it could be interesting to start a whole new watch collection (keeping the one I have) based solely on AP. I could certainly think of a dozen models, most priced below 40k (some even below 30k, while in Patek you basically have 1 single option in that price range which is very hard to get) including ROOs and Codes that I would like.
As such I booked a visit to the boutique and went there today. I felt very welcomed and both the boutique manager and SA were extremely nice.
I tried some Codes and Offshores and discussed the “journey” with the SA, explaining where I am in my collection and that would be bring some new excitement to start a completely new collection with AP.
I spoke about 2 milestones, the Jumbo and the DB open work and discussed with her what would be the best path to the jumbo, considering only watches I really like and would want to keep.
She was very open with the need to have a diverse purchase path (so no collecting all the colours of the 41 RO, which seems reasonable) to reach for the jumbo and after going together through the catalog we agreed with a very nice selection of watches. I don’t want to reveal here what that selection will be, as we never know what to expect from the future, but here is the 1st step of that path and I couldn’t be happier!
