When I lived in Saudi Arabia 30 years ago you found all kinds of iced out watches from all the manufacturers, that is what the local market liked. A few years later I visited the Audemars Piguet factory in Le Brassus and they pulled out many trays for us to look over and many of the watches were completely jewelled, including Royal Oaks. Asking about their market for these kinds of watches we were told that if that market didn't exist (mostly in the Arabic market) we would be paying a lot more for their normal line of watches because those jewelled behemoths brought in a LOT of revenue to fund the business. These watches generally don't appeal to Westerners but there definitely is a market for this type of product. Like them or not, upon inspection the jewel setting is exquisitely done on these pieces. It's always about the money, that's what makes the world go round, and that's why you get AP's like this:
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