Audemars Piguet's Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar: 150 Years of Complex Watchmaking and Where We Are Now

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Audemars Piguet's founding. In this memorable year, the company unveiled a simple perpetual calendar. Its appearance is almost identical to previous models. However, its contents are completely different. Why did they kick off their 150th anniversary with a perpetual calendar? We would like to take a closer look at this unprecedented perpetual calendar, taking into account the company's history.

Audemars Piguet creates a completely new perpetual calendar

　With a history spanning 150 years, Audemars Piguet has many strengths. However, broadly speaking, they have two pillars. One is the well-known "Royal Oak," and the other is complicated watches. According to the company's documents, from 1882 to 92, the company produced 1625 watches. Of these, 75% had one or more complicated mechanisms, a whopping 52% were so-called "musical" watches, and 38% had chronographs. Since then, the company has also produced basic models, but until 1951, essentially all of their models were unique pieces without reference numbers. In other words, for over 70 years since its founding, Audemars Piguet was an extremely unique manufacturer that produced complicated watches in small quantities.

　Let's take a moment to look back on that history. Jules-Louis Audemars established his watchmaking workshop in Le Brassus in 1875. He rented space in his father's workshop and began assembling and adjusting watches. A turning point came in 1881, when he partnered with his friend Edouard-Auguste Piguet and began manufacturing complicated timepieces. Their choice of complications over basic watches was, paradoxically, inspired by the American watch industry, which had achieved success with mass production. Indeed, mass production like that of Howard and Waltham would have been impossible in the small village of Le Brassus. On December 6, 1882, the company name Audemars Piguet was registered with the Swiss Federal Intellectual Property Office.

　As his last name suggests, Auguste Piguet was a descendant of the Piguet family, a prestigious family in the watch industry. Although he was also a talented watchmaker, Piguet continued to support Louis Audemars. This division of labor, with Audemars responsible for watchmaking and Piguet responsible for sales and management, brought great success to the emerging manufacturer Audemars Piguet.

　Auguste Piguet brought another, perhaps greatest, benefit to Audemars Piguet: the company was able to use the complicated ébauches made by Auguste Piguet's cousin, Louis-Elise Piguet. History is full of "ifs," but without Auguste Piguet, who was born into a prestigious family and had great business acumen, it's likely that Louis Audemars' workshop, like the other three Audemars workshops in the Vallée de Joux, would have been short-lived.

　The expertise in creating complications, cultivated over time, ultimately opened up a wide range of possibilities for Audemars Piguet, and in fact, the company's expertise in skeletonized and thin movements (which accounted for a staggering 77% of production in 1958) was an extension of this expertise.

　It was in 1978 that the company returned to producing complicated watches. The year before, in 1977, three of the company's watchmakers, Michel Rochat, Wilfred Barney, and Jean-Daniel Golay, proposed a new perpetual calendar project to Georges Golay, then managing director of Audemars Piguet. This involved layering a perpetual calendar module with a compact 48-month cam on top of the slim automatic Cal. 2120 movement. Upon hearing the proposal, managing director Georges Golay immediately agreed to produce 159 units. The perpetual calendar movement, released in 1978, became a huge hit, with an astounding 7000 units produced over the next 15 years.

　Looking back at history, it seems only natural that the perpetual calendar was chosen as the subject of the 150th anniversary model, even though the company aimed to create a "perpetual calendar that can be used normally."

　Since 1978, all perpetual calendars made by Audemars Piguet have had a mechanism for moving the displays using a cam and lever (and spring). While this mechanism does not allow the entire calendar to be fast-forwarded or reversed, individual displays can be fast-forwarded by pressing a push-piece on the side of the case. However, Lucas Raggi, currently Audemars Piguet's Director of Research and Development and involved in the design of complicated watches, frankly stated, "Adjusting the calendar using a push-piece on the case would damage the case, and no user wanted to make such a complicated adjustment." The development team he led aimed to create an entirely new perpetual calendar in which each calendar display could be adjusted simply by operating the crown.

　However, mechanisms that require multiple operations via the crown have been considered taboo because they would complicate the mechanism and compromise water resistance. However, Rudge's development team has succeeded in creating a perpetual calendar movement that allows all functions to be controlled via an "all-in-one" crown. Furthermore, the thickness of models equipped with this movement remains the same as before.

The main reason for the introduction of the "all-in-one" crown was the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin RD#2, released in 2018. The thickness of the movement it is equipped with is only 2.89mm. By utilizing this know-how in thinning, it would be possible to add a large and heavy "all-in-one" crown. However, with the exception of a few parts such as the month wheel and date wheel, most parts have been changed from the RD#2. The reason is likely to be to make space for adjustments.

　What's novel about this perpetual calendar is that they first calculated the force required to pull out the crown and then started the design from there. Usually, you think about the mechanism and then fine-tune the feel, but Audemars Piguet took the exact opposite approach. Their goal was to create a perpetual calendar that could actually be used.

　However, the mechanism of the "all-in-one" crown is quite large-scale. It seems like a miracle that a mechanism that not only moves the adjustment mechanism up and down around the crown, but also the two gears (diversion pinions) that mesh with that mechanism can be housed in a wristwatch. However, according to Rudge, "The design was carefully thought out, so it is very reliable." The watch can also withstand a drop test from a height of one meter onto a wooden floor, so there seems to be little chance of problems occurring during everyday use.

The operation of the "all-in-one" crown may seem complicated at first glance, but it is actually quite logical. Turning the crown toward 12 o'clock without pulling it out winds the mainspring. Pulling it out one notch and turning it upwards fast-forwards the date, and turning it downwards fast-forwards the month. The second notch operates the hour and minute hands, and pushing it in one more notch and turning the crown upwards fast-forwards the day and week, and turning it downwards adjusts the moon phase. Because the hour and minute hands are operated with the crown pulled out to the maximum, there is little risk of the crown accidentally changing position and causing the calendar to be operated incorrectly.

　The consideration for ease of use is not limited to the crown operation. Take the date display, for example. By deliberately making the intervals between the moving gears unequal, it is possible to narrow or widen the date display in certain areas. This is because the date display hand points to the center of the date numerals, improving visibility. Also, the calendar cannot be adjusted in the red part of the 24-hour display. Rather than setting a prohibited time period, it is extremely novel to make adjustment impossible in the first place.

　Incidentally, the perpetual calendar and the "all-in-one" crown are integrated rather than modular, which is why the thickness of the Cal. 7138 remains roughly the same as before, at just 4.1mm.

　Audemars Piguet is celebrating its 150th anniversary with a renewed flourish in the history of complicated timepieces. What kind of watches will the long-established Le Brassus watchmaker surprise us with this memorable year?