Audemars Piguet

Any Vintage AP's Out There? - Let's see some!

 

     After following this forum on it's old site for more than a few years and now that it's finally here on this new platform:

I'd finally like to see some more Vintage AP's appear!

IMHO vintage AP's are some of the best watches there are out there, yet they remain (except for the grand complication pocket watches...) some of the most undervalued watches on the market. Any spectacular vintage AP specimen can be usually purchased for very little money, but even this aspect seems to keep people away from them. It appears that if a watch doesn't resound with 'record' prices at action houses, some vintage watch lovers don't pay attention to them. But here are a few pictures to try to convince some of you owners of New AP's to look at the company's past and discover the truly amazing work that's been done in the past.

So in hopes of also of seeing more pictures of Vintage AP's on this wonderful forum, i'd like to kick off the new year with some pictures of my favorite vintage AP.

What you see here is a central seconds 18K AP from 1943, made for the US market to be sold in NYC (RXR on the balance bridge is the importation mark for the new importer of AP's into the US of a gentleman who is called Roehrich who from 1942 replaced the previous representative M. Bayer).

I originally got interested in this specific line of AP's from seeing a beautiful platinum AP photographed on SteveG's 'Watch launchpad'. The elegance and simplicity of the movement had a charm that still hasn't faded....

A few years later I was fortunate to run accross this amazing example: It is very understated, but extremely magical. And the movement... well I would say a true work of art from the AP atelier.

In 1943 AP produced a total of 493 watches: This number includes pocket watches, woman's watches, simple wristwatches and then chronographs.

As some information that appears in auctions demonstrate, not all of these were immediately released to the market (i.e. the famous 'piece unique' rattrapante AP No. 46978 made in 1943 was actually exported to the US and sold in 1946). Other examples are the triple date-Chronographs wristwatches that were sold to Cartier. These made it to the market only in the 1950s! (it is interesting to note that in this back of wristwatches, some rattrapante pocketwatches from the 1920's were also recased and sold to Cartier at this time). All of this is to make the point that production numbers were VERY limited, and few of these watches made it to the market in the same year they were manufactured. Each watch that came out of the AP building represented a great deal, and from the quality of finishing these watches have, this was directly reflected on the quality of the watch.

The ebauche of this watch is a Valjoux, most notabily used as chronographs (Steve G's website has great info on this, so I will not recap). But the way AP has executed this specimen here demonstrates the attention to Beauty when putting this movement together.

With these few words, I'll move to the watch

    As you can see, from a watch that lived all it's life in the humid summers, and harsh winters of NYC, it's movement and dial have seen better days. Yet through the superficial scratches, the beauty of this watch still shines through:

 

     Here is the central seconds. The dial has the feel of a 1930's Rolex, the baton indexes on the odd numbers was almost on every watch in that decade

 The dial is a wonderful champagne that makes the dial a "study" of different Gold tones: There's the pink gold hands, with the Pink gold hour markers (this color is not accurately reflected inthe pictures..), and then the champagne/gold dial, and the 18K gold of the case.... the strap helps to add to this play of like tones...

 

   And here is my favorite part:

    The main gear train is mad of solid gold wheels, while the seconds hand is made from the standard brass. The writing on the movement itself is exquisite!

   These pictures were taken a few years ago 'pre' service, and you can see some considerable dust! Please excuse this...

 As a matter of fact, I haven't had the watch opened since it's been serviced. I'm tempted to have an exhibition caseback for it made, but for now these pictures will do~

  If you can see in this pictures, sometime in its past, a watchmaker lost one of the screws to the pallet fork plate and replaced it with a crude one that sands out like a sore thumb...

   I'll confess to the horror of some of you, that I wear this watch about 2-3 a week, and it keeps I would say 'superlative' timing. It's rate varies from -4 to -13 depending on the day. Outstanding ...

  So with this brief introduction, I hope some of those AMAZING vintage AP's will come out of the woodwork and make their appearance here on the AP forum!

Happy New Year, and may it bring you lots of joy, 

Sebastian