First introduced as a time-only luxury sports watch in steel with an integrated bracelet in 1972, the ingenious design was by the great and late Gerald Genta. An unusual release at the time, doubly so for its release during the peak of the quartz crisis, it commanded a higher price than a gold watch. However, the firm’s vision behind Genta’s ingenuity would prevail, becoming the true pioneers behind the boom of the luxury sports wristwatch.

The Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar was launched in 1984. The forward-thinking approach from the Managing Director of Audemars Piguet at the time, George Golay, took the thin workhorse caliber 2120/2800, added an ultra-slim perpetual calendar module, and fitted it into the already slim Royal Oak case, making it one of the world’s thinnest automatic perpetual calendar watches.

The very first of these produced in series was the reference 25554 like the present lot and was made only in scarce quantities: an estimated 279 examples across all metals including yellow gold, stainless steel, and platinum.

One of the earlier examples produced with case number C16 serial it features all the subtle details collectors have come to love such as the three gold dotted indexes at 3, 9 and 12 o’clock and its small signature under the moon phase.