Comments:
When is a VZA a VZAQ? New information from the AP registers
A recent article on the AP website ('Stopping time: the vintage Audemars Piguet chronographs', 3 October) is headed by photographs of a truly wonderful watch in their museum: a yellow gold triple calendar chronograph with phases of the moon, no. 45589, made in 1941.
A very rare watch, certainly, but there are several examples in the Brunner/Pfeiffer-Belli/Wehrli book (1993 edition) and they are all captioned as being calibre VZA. I was very puzzled, therefore, to read in the new website article that the watch shown contained the "Valjoux 13VZAQ calibre. The Q refers to the French word for calendar, Quantieme" and that "13VZ or 13VZA was the calibre designation for examples with two registers" (i.e. the basic chronograph with just a minute counter).
All became somewhat clearer when I contacted AP and received a very prompt reply from their archivist Raphael Balestra:
"Both information are correct. It depends on our archives, that are not always providing the same amount of precision. The base of the chronograph calibre from this era is the 13VZ. The letters added, describing the complications added are not always present. For example, we can easily have some pieces that are described as a 13VZ calibre in our register and have a calendar.
Lately, we began to use the most complete data we found. It is the case here, we could read 13VZAQ, we then decided to be as accurate and complete as we could."
So it seems that the 13VZ chronograph with minute counter was re-designated 13VZA by AP but for some reason a number (the majority?) of 13VZAQ were recorded as 13VZA in the registers. One problem now is that when an auction house offers a useful titbit such as "only xx VZAs were made in 194x", presumably provided by AP at some point, we won't know what has been counted when and whether it can be relied upon.
A wise man would probably say "they're rare and they're beautiful - just leave it at that". But if you are hooked on the detail, you're hooked.
NickP
Great post Nick. Raphael is really an authority.
And Michael Friedman too. AP history is in great hands with these individuals and the others in LeBrassus. They take the details very seriously.
Thank you very much, Michael.
They have put together quite a team at AP so I'm hopeful there will be a new book at some point, perhaps a detailed catalogue of the museum collection.
Nick
I can say with certainty AP has honors and maintains their history.
I am lucky to have visited the facilities in Le Brassus twice. When you go through the museum and Restoration Workshop - it just evokes feelings of days gone by. I can only really compare it to visiting the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. You don't just see the history, you feel it.
I have no information on upcoming publications, but I do know a lot of emphasis continues to be placed on filling in any and all holes on the history of every watch that has been produced by Audemars Piguet. It is a very important matter for the brand. The records are really astounding.
Thanks again for your post Nick.