AUDEMARS PIQUET ROYAL OAK, the iconic watch that forever changed the history of AP was designed by the amazing Gerald Genta. In 1970 AP reached out this amazing watch genius in order to design a watch, inspired by the vintage diving helmet attached to the rest of the suit with screws Gerald Genta presented this magnificent model
1972, Royal Oak Jumbo
In 1972 AUDEMARS PIQUET ROYAL OAK was presented to the public under the Reference 5402ST with Calibre 2121, Movement 127059. Bracelet 344, T21 Tapisserie dial, Case 67026, 39 mm available in steel but priced as much as a gold watch due to its unique characteristics. This amazing first model remained the same until 1976 but was categorized in 4 different series A,B,C and D.
It is important to note that as AP had under 100 employees the number of watches were limited therefore A series was limited to 2.000 pieces and therefore it is known as the A Series. It was also called Jumbo due to its 39mm diameter which was also the cause of its limited sales track. In years to come Audemar Patek launched Models 14802 (1992), 15002 (1996), 15202 (2000) and 16202 (2022).
ROYAL OAK 5402ST
1976, Royal Oak II 8638
The need for a womens version of this amazing watch was obvious and this was able to come in life with the arrival of Audemars Piguet’s first female designer, Jacqueline Dimier. The birth of 8638 was a reality, made of steel, with its characteristic visible screws, self winding mechanism, Calibre 2062 (Rayville – LeCoultre blank)with its 29 mm diameter that made it extremely challenging to be produced.
In 1977 and onwards 8638 was created in two-tone and yellow gold versions. In 1978 the first white gold version was produced. A success from day one and according to AP records in 1976, 423 watches were sold in 1977, 1,000 units in 1978 and from the year it was obvious that it was a huge success for the company. In 1908’s the 8638 replaced its self winding movement with quartz.
ROYAL OAK II 8638ST
1977, Royal Oak III
1977 was a really important year as AP introduced three new models 5402 and 8638 in three variations yellow and white gold as well as steel and yellow gold. Parallel with the introduction of the iconic 4100 known as ROYAL OAK III in 35MM and the 900.
Royal Oak III 4100
Designed by Jacqueline Dimier, Model 4100 sometimes appears in the sources under the name “Royal Oak III”. This model responds to growing demand in certain markets where the first 39 mm had not proved very popular. Due to its popularity until 1981 AP introduced 27 new references.
AUDEMARS PIGUET ROYAL OAK III
Evolution of Royal Oak throughout the years!
1977 introducing 35 MM
References 4100 followed by 4153, 4331, 14544, 14486, 14567, 14575, 14674
1983 introducing 36 MM with a combination of:
Day Date for 5572, 5581, 5584
Moon Phases 5658, 5595
Three Hand Models 14498 (1986), 14700 (1990) plus 14701, 14702 and 14704
Want to learn more about the history of Audemars Piquet? Check our article here
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Vallée de Joux, Switzerland — Contributing Editor, high complications & independent watchmaking
Julien Favre learned the difference between good silence and bad silence before he was ten. Good silence was his grandfather at the bench in Le Sentier, loupe screwed into one eye, breathing shallow over a disassembled minute repeater. Bad silence was the moment a hairspring pinged off the peg-wood and disappeared into the floorboards. The family atelier — three generations of movement servicing for the maisons that carpet the Vallée de Joux — was never framed as a legacy Julien was expected to join. It simply was the house, the way weather is the house in a mountain valley.
He resisted it, predictably. He studied economics in Lausanne and spent two years in Geneva watch retail, selling the objects rather than opening them. What pulled him back was not sentiment but frustration: he found he could describe why a movement was beautiful far better than anyone selling it could, because he had seen its underside. He started writing — first a blog dissecting finishing under macro photography, then commissioned work for the trade press, then features that treated escapements the way music critics treat a fugue.
Julien now covers high complications, restoration, and the fragile economics of independent watchmaking for European and English-language titles. His reporting is unusually technical without being cold; he is as interested in the person hunched over the bench as in the tolerances they hold. He is skeptical of hype, allergic to press-release adjectives, and reliably the first to notice when a "revolutionary" caliber is a reworked ébauche.
He still returns to the family workshop each winter to service a single pocket watch on his grandfather's bench — a discipline, he says, that keeps his writing honest. A critic who cannot do the thing risks worshipping it. Byline version: Julien Favre is a contributing editor covering high complications and independent watchmaking. He grew up in a movement-servicing atelier in the Vallée de Joux and still works the family bench each winter
London, United Kingdom — Features Writer, vintage & provenance
Daniel Hartley came to watches late and sideways. For eleven years he was a picture editor at a national newspaper, a job that trained him to read objects for their stories — who held this, when, why it survived. He had no family in the trade and no particular interest in the mechanical side. What captured him was a single wristwatch left by an uncle: scratched, unremarkable, and engraved on the caseback with a date and a name he didn't recognize. Chasing that name down took him six months and taught him that a watch is a document.
That is still his beat. Daniel writes about vintage watches as historical witnesses — service records, auction provenance, the quiet forensics of establishing whether a dial is original or has lived a second life. He is drawn to the objects that outlast their owners and carry the fingerprints of everyone who wound them.
His journalistic instincts make him a careful, sometimes uncomfortable presence at auction houses, where provenance is asserted more often than proven. He has broken stories about redialed "military" pieces and inflated attributions, and he writes about the vintage market's honesty problem without pretending he's above the romance that fuels it — he is not, and admits it.
Daniel's features read like reportage rather than reviews. He is more interested in the human chain behind an object than in its lug width, though he has learned the lug width matters too. He photographs everything himself, a holdover from the picture desk.
He wears the uncle's watch daily. He has never had it restored, on principle. The scratches, he argues, are the point. Byline version: Daniel Hartley is a features writer covering vintage watches and provenance. A former newspaper picture editor, he came to horology through a single inherited watch and its unresolved history.
Vallée de Joux, Switzerland — Contributing Editor, high complications & independent watchmaking
Julien Favre learned the difference between good silence and bad silence before he was ten. Good silence was his grandfather at the bench in Le Sentier, loupe screwed into one eye, breathing shallow over a disassembled minute repeater. Bad silence was the moment a hairspring pinged off the peg-wood and disappeared into the floorboards. The family atelier — three generations of movement servicing for the maisons that carpet the Vallée de Joux — was never framed as a legacy Julien was expected to join. It simply was the house, the way weather is the house in a mountain valley.
He resisted it, predictably. He studied economics in Lausanne and spent two years in Geneva watch retail, selling the objects rather than opening them. What pulled him back was not sentiment but frustration: he found he could describe why a movement was beautiful far better than anyone selling it could, because he had seen its underside. He started writing — first a blog dissecting finishing under macro photography, then commissioned work for the trade press, then features that treated escapements the way music critics treat a fugue.
Julien now covers high complications, restoration, and the fragile economics of independent watchmaking for European and English-language titles. His reporting is unusually technical without being cold; he is as interested in the person hunched over the bench as in the tolerances they hold. He is skeptical of hype, allergic to press-release adjectives, and reliably the first to notice when a "revolutionary" caliber is a reworked ébauche.
He still returns to the family workshop each winter to service a single pocket watch on his grandfather's bench — a discipline, he says, that keeps his writing honest. A critic who cannot do the thing risks worshipping it.
Byline version: Julien Favre is a contributing editor covering high complications and independent watchmaking. He grew up in a movement-servicing atelier in the Vallée de Joux and still works the family bench each winter
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