Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept Watch 1

June 01, 2022

Earlier this year, during a visit to Munich, I walked into this little watch shop near the city center and I was amazed by the collection they had. Tried on an AP ROO Diver and decided that could become my next watch, or at least earned a spot in my want-list. I am talking Meertz World of Time in Munich here. A cool watch store with a lot of vintage , Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos clocks and a lot of other brands.Today, I noticed that Meertz has this cool Royal Oak Concept 1 watch by Audemars Piguet up for sale. It dates back to 2004 and was limited to 150 pieces only. Introduced in 2002 (there was a special catalogue for this model and also AP s famous #1, #2 and #3 catalogues? mentioned this model), celebrating 30 years of Royal Oak watches, Audemars Piguet created this extreme looking time piece that was made out of an alloy called Alacrite 602 and featured a titanium bezel. The caliber 2896 manual wind movement was created by Renaud & Papi (which belongs to AP) and featured a clutch for the crown functionality, displaying whether the watch is in winding, setting or neutral mode. Something we ve recently seen on other timepieces as well.Furthermore, this watch features a power reserve indicator (70 hours), a tourbillon (which doesn t make that much sense on an extreme sports watch) and a Dymograph. A what? Yes, a Dymographe. It is an instantaneous mainspring torque indicator, which means just that. You have to know that a watch with a spring (as mechanical watches tend to have) has no constant force (= torque) but diminishes as the spring unwinds. The Dymographe shows just that, the mainspring s torque at that particular moment.A similar Royal Oak Concept ref.25980AI has been auctioned by Antiquorum in 2007, and fetched $232,400.- USD. Today s price of this watch at Meertz World of Time is 178.500,- Euro (approx $261,300.- USD). The 150 pieces AP created were divided over 2002 (30 pieces), 2003 (60 pieces) and 2004 (60 pieces).Click here for Meertz World of Time s offer for more details and photos!