Timepieces Trade Market

Audemars Piguet : History

There are encounters between people that turn out to be so stimulating and profound that they make history. Thus it was between two young men, Jules-Louis Audemars and Edward-Auguste Piguet. They not only came from the same area, but had much more in common: both were descended from long-established watchmaking families and had therefore adopted the demanding craft of their ancestors. Both had talent, and each wanted to produce movements and complete watches of the finest quality on his own responsibility. And finally both had undergone a thorough professional training as movement finishers.

In 1875, directly after his return to Le Brassus, Jules Audemars embarked upon the job of finishing and assembly of complicated movements in the business of his parents. Edward Piguet, whom he knew from school, sports club and choir, used to help him occasionally. From their regular meetings emerged the resolve to travel the same professional road together.

On 17 December 1881, they founded their own company in Le Brassus which they called Audemars Piguet & Cie.

By early 1882, they presented their first complicated pocket-watches. These included models with perpetual calendars, minute-repeaters and chronographs.

In 1891, Audemars Piguet (AP) gained fame with the smallest-ever minute-repeating movement - barely 18 mm in diameter. At the turn of the century the Glashütte chronometer-makers Union, founded in 1893, became one of their major clients. AP delivered a total of 35 mostly complicated watches to the Mecca of German watchmaking between 1895 and 1912.

In 1920 the workshops produced one of their most elaborate pocket-watches with a total of 15 complications, including a tourbillon escapement, grand and small strike in passing, equation of time, perpetual calendar and sidereal time with the peculiarity of a blue enamelled disc with 315 engraved stars showing the exact night sky over London through an aperture in the dial.

AP produced wristwatches as early as 1893 as one-off pieces. One of them, probably the first ever wrist minute-repeater, originated as a commission from Louis Brandt. There was much debate at that time over whether the winding and setting crown should be on the right or the left of the case. It was then by no means established that right-handed people should wear their watches on the left wrist.

After the turn of the century, wristwatches assumed a growing importance in the AP collection. On the one hand, there was a growing diversity in the shape, materials and decoration of the cases. On the other, the proportion of complicated models began to increase steadily, starting mainly with minute-repeaters. Conservative estimates put the number of such wristwatches produced between 1906 and 1920 at around 20. From 1921, AP showed how avant-garde it could be in making wristwatches more attractive through additional indications or modified ways of showing the time. From 1929, the number of normal and complicated wristwatches was able to outstrip pocket-watches, thanks especially to the mainly rectangular models with date and / or moon-phase, full calendars, jumping digital hours or digital hours and minutes. The first wrist-chronographs appeared in 1927, and from 1930 this type of watch gained in importance.

From 1940 came a 13-ligne chronograph with 30-minute and 12-hour elapsed-time counters as well as a 10-ligne version with a minute counter. A model with split-seconds appeared the following year. Various versions with 30-minute and 12-hour counters as well as full calendars and moon-phases completed the comprehensive wrist-chronograph programme from 1942.

In 1934, in the depths of the world recession, Audemars Piguet demonstrated its creative capacities with the revival of a watchmaking speciality that had been forgotten since the 18th century - the skeleton watch.

In 1946 Audemars Piguet introduced the world's thinnest movement for wristwatches with a height of only 1,64 mm. This filigreed construction proved to be so reliable that it is still part of the company's classic products today. A further world record followed in 1967 when AP introduced on the market the thinnest automatic movement, measuring just 2,45 mm high with its central gold winding-rotor. A version with date (3,05 mm) appeared in 1970. These calibers also remain in production today.

From 1972 the Royal Oak, the first luxury sports-watch in a steel case, changed the face or watch design.

In 1978 the Audemars Piguet company drew on us almost century-old tradition in the demanding area of calendar watches with a successor to its first perpetual-calendar wristwatch, launched in 1950. The new model with an ultra-thin automatic movement is also still in current production.

Another world premier followed in 1986 with the first self-winding wrist tourbillon. Further highlights included a rectangular minute-repeating wristwatch with jumping hours, a quarter-repeating grand-strike, clock-watch, comprising 412 parts, and a ladies' wristwatch with minute-repeater on a carillon.

In 1999 AP introduced a completely new hand-wound caliber (height 2,8 mm, diameter 21,4 mm, 21 jewels, 148 parts) with a 48-hour power-reserve. The free-sprung Glucydur balance, with eight adjusting screws on a flat "Anachron" spring, beats at 21,600 vibrations an hour (3 Hz).

There is no doubt today that other spectacular developments will follow from this Company.