The Watch – Audemars Piguet The Royal Oak

Audemars Piguet is not just another watch company. Founded in 1875 by Jules Louis Audemars and Edward Auguste Piguet, they joined forces with an aim of creating beautiful watches with complex but precise mechanisms. Today Audemars Piguet is the oldest fine watch-making manufacture never to have left the hands of it’s founding families. This alone puts them in their own category and allows them to follow their own vision.

The watch above is from the Royal Oak collection, which celebrates it’s 40th anniversary this year and brings together the best of both worlds, with it’s beautiful vintage 1972 styling and precise mechanisms. True to the original, it still retains it’s 39mm diameter steel case, with it’s octagonal bezel, shaped after King Charles II’s Royal Oak battle ship.

Other features include glareproof scratch resistant sapphire crystal , a blue Petite Tapisserie patterned face, a white gold dial with a luminescent coating, a ultra thin movement (just 3.05mm), a selfwinding calibre 2121 movement and a 40 hour power reserve made up of 247 parts and 36 jewels.

This watch is real craftsman’s ship, with each piece being painstakingly put together and applied. £16,000 audemarspiguet.com

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