25686BA Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Quantième Perpétuel

This was the RM of its day, just with more substance; AP invented the combination high complication with sporting ambition in the 1984 ref. 5554. This is, and to ours will likely forever remain, the apex of Royal Oak collecting. Maybe not this precise iteration, but the pre-leap year QP as a category, of which there are fewer than 1600 examples. Today, they’re on the long tail of the hype cycle, and that’s a good thing for those of us who’ve always sought vintage integrated complication. It started timidly as the 5548 with its calibre 2120/2800 (that famously had to be developed in secret by three senior watchmakers for fear of AP’s quartz reprimand), but it ended here with supreme confidence here.

Post quartz crisis, AP had two very successful watches in the market. The first was the 5548 (and its descendants), that 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. In a demonstration of utter bravery, 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.

The 25686 is somewhere toward the chronological middle of the 10-ish pre-leap year references, starting 1989 (four years after the original) and introducing a display caseback to the party for the first time. Some will be quite surprised just how hand crafted this skeletonized rotor looks. This is one of 70 in yellow gold, alongside 85 in steel, 43 bimetal, 26 platinum, and 9 in pink gold. There are two main dial types in all pre-leap year indication. Mark 1 dials have a straight ‘block’ text for the ‘AUDEMARS PIGUET’ signature, where all letters are equally tall. Mark 2 dials have a mixed caps font. Mark 1s are mostly up to early C-Series but a handful in D as well.

In 1999, a platinum 25658 was 31K at Christies. In 2022, the same dial and metal sold at 460K USD at Phillips. But now they’ve settled; much like the Heuer Parade, the huge Phillips Royal Oak 50th sale softened the market for a small while. Yellow gold is now a small bit—and I stress small—more attainable; prices today have settled between 125-175K though they’ve been on the same trajectory. And yes, that’s crazy, but not when you remember that the new ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Tuscan’ John Mayer QP is 180K. Vintage every day here.

This example has a fairly strong case, I suspect just very lightly polished going by the bevel transition. Its dial is lovely, no visible damage and all block signature, which makes sense for the early D series. Bracelet still appears fairly tight. It comes from a well-regarded London retailer.