The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak
© Audemars Piguet
The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak: Overpriced And Overrated Or Unique?
Watch Snob
A pricey choice
Hi Watch Snob,
I love the Royal Oak, but I find the price of the15202 model to be unreasonably high.
What alternatives would be best? The 15400 is too big and lacks elegance. The 15300 is also quite thick. The 14790 seems fine, but I have not see one in the flesh. The 25572 and the 25594 seem very interesting and underappreciated, but I don't know how thin they are.
Please share your opinion.
Well, if nothing else you seem to have done your homework in researching Royal Oak models. Okay, the 15202 you find unreasonably expensive, which is a reasonable assertion for pretty much any luxury watch nowadays. The 15400 is the current Royal Oak Self-Winding, with the AP in house caliber 3120. 14790 is a discontinued Royal Oak, 36mm in diameter, with a Jaeger-LeCoultre base caliber, and 25572/94 are day-date models, with the latter sporting a moonphase as well, and with a movement based on the AP caliber 2121, with a day-date module added (displayed on two subdials, which give these models their "Owl" nickname). Whew!
I agree with you that the 15202 is very expensive, however it's as expensive as it is for a reason, and that reason is the movement. Caliber 2121 is the date version of caliber 2120 which, when it was introduced in the 1960s, was the thinnest full rotor self-winding movement in the world. It has been used by Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin, and Patek Philippe and at present it is only available from either Audemars Piguet, or from Vacheron Constantin, who use it in the Overseas Ultra Thin. You clearly want an elegant watch, with an elegant, thin movement, and I have to say, the other watches you cite are compromises to what you really want. The other watches are of varying degrees of interest but sadly for you, the pureblood watch that really fits the bill is the 15202, and if you want that movement, in a new modern watch, in steel, it's going to cost you what it costs you.
The Jumbo
What do you think about the following Royal Oaks: 14790 (36mm * 8 mm) and 15300 (39mm * 9.4mm).
I would love to own the Jumbo, but it is quite rare and too expensive. The 15400 I find too thick and big for my liking, so I have turned my attention to these discontinued Oaks, which could be found at very reasonable prices.
Looking forward to hearing your expert opinion.
You have the same problem as the first gentleman who just wrote in. The 14790 is a perfectly nice, Jaeger-LeCoultre powered 36mm Royal Oak but you can't put it next to the 15202 or a vintage Jumbo and convince yourself that they have the same appeal.
This is the reality: there is what one wants and there is what one can afford and the two often don't match up. We can be sad about it, we can blame life, our spouse, our employer, bad luck, evil spirits, the phases of the moon or what have you. We can blame the incurable greed of the Swiss and their opportunistic pricing for luxury watches, which has made what was once merely a luxury, into a tragi-comic exercise in vicious excess. However, the fact remains that if one is left with the choice between owning something that is a compromise, and not owning the real object of one's affection, it is better to forego ownership than waste money on something that is not going to satisfy you in the first place.
Royal Oak Vs. Patek Nautilus
Dear Watch Snob,
Most times, you have shown in your column both impeccable taste and sound judgement about this strange and exotic world of Haute Horlogerie. In particular, I cannot agree more with your views that most of the Grandes Maisons are resting on their laurels: Patek, for one, by compromising on quality and by forgetting the meaning of the word innovation, and AP by relying mostly on the RO Offshore collection and some of its most horrifying limited editions.
But, as I'm sure you know, the heart has reasons that reason does not know, or so Blaise thinks. Thus, my question, which contradicts both your regular, and opinionated, position and my wobbly guiding principles, is as follows. I am considering a new purchase and face a dilemma: option A, the new Royal Oak double balance wheel openwork or, option B, the Patek Nautilus 5990. I do not yet own a proper sport steel watch and these are the two that I fancy. I understand these are very different watches, one being a simple but elegant complication with the flashiness of the skeletonized movement, the other a more complicated watch, if a bit more understated, and with a very useful mix of function.
For some background, this is my current collection: Vacheron Quai de l'Ile day date (in titanium), Lange 1 Time Zone (platinum), IWC Portuguese perpetual calendar chrono (75th anniversary limited edition in rose gold, a truly interesting watch with an original and clean presentation), Panerai PAM317 (mono poussoir GMT 8 days in black ceramic - I'm telling you this since I suspect your knowledge of Panerai is limited…), a Blancpain steel Leman perpetual chrono (which I consider a youth mistake) and a Blancpain Bathyscaph as my go to dive watch. My wish list is mostly filled with Langes at this point, but I want to go full circle on important brands before coming back to them (maybe to the new Richard Lange Jumping Seconds which I find truly extraordinary).
These are two very different watches and they will each, obviously, fill a different place in your collection. The Royal Oak double balance wheel is in my view, by far the most interesting between it and the Patek (a GMT chronograph wristwatch) which, while an attractive watch in its own right, and one which offers all that the Nautilus offers (a classic design, for one thing, in one of the very first stainless steel luxury watches every produced) looks rather pedestrian against the double balance wheel.
This, of course, also raises the larger and perpetual question of how one chooses, if choose one must, between the Royal Oak and the Nautilus. The Nautilus has against it the perception that the decision to produce it was driven by the success of its predecessor, the Royal Oak; the Royal Oak has against it that it is not a Patek Philippe. I personally find both arguments a little tired, at this point; the Nautilus has been around long enough that even though it may initially have been looked down on for aping Audemars Piguet, it has long since earned its own place in the sun … through sheer persistence, if nothing else. The Royal Oak, of course, especially in the Jumbo model (15202) with the perpetually lovely caliber 2121, is not put in the shade by anything Patek makes, or indeed anything it is ever likely to make.
For you, though, the choice is between two designs equal in aesthetic success and prestige, with one watch both artistic and aesthetically compelling (AP) and the other practical, but for all its quality of construction, rather ordinary. I know what I'd do.
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