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Audemars Piguet 20th Century Complicated wristwatches book

  1. SpeedyPhill Founder Of Aussie Cricket Blog Mark Waugh Universe May 3, 2020

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  2. WatchCor May 3, 2020

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    Damn great, thank you for sharing.

    You wouldn't by happenstance be referring to this?

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  3. Evitzee May 3, 2020

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    As a long time AP aficionado (mainly non-Royal Oak) I bought this book almost two years ago. There is a wealth of information here concerning volumes produced (very, very small), the financial struggles the company faced during the depression when they would often only produce a few watches a year just to keep the lights on, and then the resurgence of complicated watches in 1978 when AP took a big gamble and introduced their white dialed perpetual calendar which was priced at $15,000 in the USA, a huge price in the Jimmy Carter era recession. It can be fairly argued that this watch was far more important than the introduction of original Royal Oak some years earlier.

    Because of the tiny production numbers in the first half of the century most of these watches were one-of-a-kind with individual cases and dials. AP describes how they would order the cases and dials from outside suppliers and one of things they usually stressed was the case was to be made as small as possible as that was a key parameter for a luxury watch because that showed the watchmaker's technical skill. And a repeating wristwatch was several times more expensive than a repeating pocket watch. After the smallest repeating movement was made in 1921 (7 ligne - 15.8mm) the watchmaker who made the chiming mechanism said he would never make another one no matter what the price was, it was just too difficult. That is totally flipped today as people want ever bigger watches and movements to fit the case.

    I would highly recommend this book if you are an AP fan and want some deep insight as to the road they travelled to get to where they are today when it comes to complicated watches. Just be aware there is almost no Royal Oak coverage.

    I bought this AP manual wind perpetual calendar ca 1992, it was a kind of homage to the original calendar watch AP made in the 1920's.
     
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  4. imageWIS May 3, 2020

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    It's a great book, and so are the AP Chiming and Perpetual Calendar books.
     
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