25654ST Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Quantième Perpétuel

We’ve all gotten used to wild Laurent Ferrier Grand Sport Tourbillons, FPJ Sport Rattrapantes, or even RMs, but this was the first time high complication met sporting ambition. It is impossible to overstate the significance of reference 5554, the Royal Oak QP, first debuted in 1984. Collectors and enthusiasts know, but everyone else has forgotten. This is a the 25654, 1 of just 272 to have been made in steel and one of 800 examples over all metals. And it’s one of just 1600 examples of the Royal Oak QP made before the addition of leap year indication. These early examples of a category-defining watch are, despite absolute high values, relatively not appreciated for the foundations they laid.

Post quartz crisis, AP had two successful watches in the market. The first was the 5548 (and its descendants), the perpetual calendar developed in secret which was the sole watch that brought fine mechanical watchmaking back to supremacy. The second, Genta’s masterpiece: the 5402. So what do you do? Hit the mashup button. AP squeezed the 5548’s incredible ultra-thin perpetual calendar movement into a Royal Oak case. The development was no small expense. It would be sold for outrageous money at the time, even marketed later as ‘…Still, the most expensive steel watch in the world’. By 1993 its price was about fourteen times what a steel Submariner went for back then, 45000 USD. And the case even went on a fast, just 8mm thin. This example has a correct early dial, Mark 1, with a ‘block’ AP signature instead of mixed caps.

Yes, this is a 158K US-ask watch today, and that’s a huge amount. But a London Crash is a million dollar watch, and that will never compute in my mind. Perhaps a production of 1600 examples is just too many, but I doubt it. Despite James Stacey’s excellent work, I suspect that, still, no one is really appreciating what a category-defining watch this was. It’s a shorts-and-split-seconds-kind-of attitude, which is just kind of hard to not love. And it’s a buyer’s market. The best example is given by a certain 25654, a grey mark 1 dial just like this, movement no 294173. In 2017, it hammered for 40K CHF at Phillips. By 2022, it hammered at 327K CHF. Now this is the exact same example and auction house, mind you, as controlled an experiment as we’re going to get. The Royal Oak QP has cooled considerably since Phillips shotgunned the market to the face with that 50th sale. But the great ones are as great as they’ve ever been.

This example appears to be very strong. The case is proud with strong bevels and defined edges, possibly refinished but well done if so. The dial does have a very light scratch near 4 which just should be noted but is quite minimal. It come from a well-regarded Genevan retailer.