Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Acquisition

A few weeks ago, I was enjoying our family vacation in the summer heat of Portugal and as I began another pleasant day, I checked my messages and saw an email from an auction house.  The first line read "Congratulations on your purchase...".  Surprise!  About a month before, I had left an absentee bid for a watch that interested me and I had thought what the heck, let's take a flyer on it.  I knew the market price for this reference and I put in something a little bit under.  It would be a great bargain in my mind.  I didn't bother to follow the auction on-line since I was on holiday.

But a little luck is always welcome.

Now, the headache:  making payment.  They needed payment within 3 business days while I was on holiday and they wouldn't take a credit card and wanted a bank wire.  Consternation!  Kudos to them for giving me extra time, while the rising GBP exchange rate really hurt, the headache is now gone.

Here is lady luck's reward.  (I should invest in FedEx stock.)







The whole package, a sigh of relief that everything came as expected.




Next the interesting part:  a little about the watch model history.  Dr. Kol has recently posted a picture of his beautiful piece so I'm glad it is fresh in PuristS minds.  The RO QP model was introduced by AP in 1984.  Strangely enough when I was doing my research about the RO QP, there were wildly different origin dates.  Hodinkee blog in an archive article puts it at 1978.  Time and Watches blog had an article that puts it at 1981.  Phillips Bacs & Russo, who are highly respected for their research documentation related to their lots, dated one RO QP lot at 1980 and another RO QP lot at 1981.  Watch Collecting Lifestyle blog puts it at 1983.  The correct origin year is 1984 because it comes from Michael Friedman, the historian of the AP museum.  I would trust the manufacturer's own historian because he has direct access to their archives.  The blogs are wrong for reasons which I don't know.  Phillips Bacs & Russo were possibly being very optimistic with their dates because vintage is hot and the older the watch, I think the higher the perceived value.

The perpetual calendar is a module that sits on top of the famous JLC calibre 920 introduced in 1967.  AP developed the QP module in 1978 (again the date comes directly from AP).  It has been a workhorse and AP has used it in various QP model lines through the decades.  AP has burnished their history with the assertion that the QP module saved the company during the quartz crisis.  According to Deployant, AP produced over 7000 QP watches altogether from about 1978 - 1992, see ref 5548.  It is true in that there are many AP QPs from the 1980s that can be found for resale nowadays.  But when AP decided to fit it into the Royal Oak design around 1984, it turned out to be a masterstroke because the Gerald Genta design has proven so far to withstand time & changing tastes.  Sporty, masculine, well-sized, elegant & legible, the marriage of the Royal Oak case & bracelet with the perpetual calendar dial had made a milestone watch (and in my opinion, has not truly been topped by another manufacturer*).  And of course the success of the RO evolution has been a boon to AP's coffers but a point of frustration to some purists who favor exclusivity/rarity, more a bit below.

The current generation of the AP RO QP is ref 26574 introduced 2 years ago.  (I consider the all-ceramic ref 26579 a novelty.)  I think there have been at least 6 generations of the AP RO QP in general release, including ref 26574 but excluding the skeleton references because the available information about them is much more sparse.  The early generations of the RO QP were made in relatively low production numbers.  Again excluding the skeleton references, my internet searches indicate that there were possibly less than 1,500 watches produced up to about 1995.  Coincidentally in 1995 is when AP added the leap year indicator to the RO QP module.  And beginning in the late 1990's, I would guess the production numbers have grown considerably with the overall Swiss industry expansion.

Through the years, AP has followed a blueprint that they have used very effectively.  The AP RO QP has been made in all different materials:  SS, RG, YG, Pt, and tantalum.  The dials have been created in white, silver, blue, black, salmon, champagne, grey, and mother-of-pearl.  We've seen mixed materials as two-tone tastes come & go.  (My own watch is ref 25820 in SS with Pt bezel and center links; the ref was introduced around the mid-1990s - mine is dated from 2000 -- and had a very long run until about 2008.)  The weeks chapter ring was introduced for the RO QP reference 25810 around 1995 and then brought back again in the slightly enlarged current ref 26574.  Take away the smoke & mirrors and it has been essentially the same watch since 1984 -- the stick baton hands; the very legible separate indicators for month, day & date; the moonphase & name at 6 -- with the two big changes being the leap year indicator and the weeks chapter ring. 


The previous owner cared for it well though the bezel could not avoid some hardship. I have to figure out how to photograph this watch - processed B&W looks okay.




(Btw, if you're still reading, you deserve a medal!)

So that gets us back to the point raised earlier of basically saying familiarity breeds contempt.  I want to add some words to this oft-discussed topic about AP because my tastes on AP & the RO have made a 180 degrees turn.  Though in the past I have liked the ROs from a distance, I personally did not want to own one because they have been so ubiquitous.  Then in Italy a few years ago I tried on the RO at Tempus Orologi for the first time (in YG) and it felt fantastic; I didn't buy it.  Then last year I got the PP 3700/11 and have loved wearing it.  The Nautilus refined my tastes for Gerald Genta's designs.  And so I had to go back to arguably the most famous of all his creations - the Royal Oak - the progenitor of so many inspirations from other manufacturers, and re-evaluate my interests.  I did not want a time & date because it would be redundant with the 3700 - as a rule, I try to avoid redundancy - so I looked at the more complicated RO lines.  And I came to the conclusion that the RO QP was the ref to get.  I love the complexity of the perpetual calendar distilled down to a small window of less than 39mm wide and 10mm thick; it's an amazing human achievement.  Michael Friedman stated in an online interview that the perpetual calendar watch is a link to human history when for centuries man would look up at the stars and wonder about his place in the cosmos.  It is a romantic way to encapsulate the human heritage of the perpetual calendar on your wrist.  So as the sun will rise again tomorrow, AP will continue to make Royal Oaks in various forms & flavors.  I accept that AP does not exist today without the ROs and will not exist tomorrow without the ROs.  Very few ROs will be exclusive and rare.  It is the path that has been laid and I suspect it will not change for many years.  So enjoy a remarkable watch whatever number of siblings it has.  (Although Messieurs Bennahmias & Emmenegger of AP told Angus Davies in an interview last year that a brand new model will be introduced by AP in 2017.)

*My un-scientific listing of sports-style perpetual calendar watches by manufacturers since 1984.  The criteria is a perpetual calendar in a SS case on a bracelet (or rubber strap) in general release.  Imagine you're at the beach, you need a watch that can get splashed by water or covered by some sand, and plus you have a burning desire to know the exact month, day & date and of course moonphase.  :P

Blancpain Leman perpetual calendar chronograph introduced in 1990s
Ulysse Nardin Ludwig perpetual calendar developed in 1996 (put into the Acqua and El Toro models)
GP Laureato perpetual calendar chronograph introduced circa 2003
GP R&D 01 perpetual calendar chronograph introduced in 2000s
VC Overseas perpetual calendar chronograph introduced in 2011
IWC Ingenieur perpetual calendar chronograph introduced in 2000s
IWC Big Pilot perpetual calendar chronograph introduced in 2010s

I know it's apples & oranges because the AP RO QP does not have a chronograph.  But that's the list from my survey, if you wanted a true sports-style perpetual calendar watch - crazy guy on the beach wearing a watch that costs the average income of some people, the AP was the first one from the great old maisons and then almost a decade later Blancpain & UN would introduce something to rival it.  Of course we know PP has been biding their time to answer the challenge - 33 years & counting.

Thanks for reading - Joe