After the Second World War, only a meager few manufacturers still mastered the skills required to produce Grand Complication pocket watches. The absolute ultimate expression of watchmaking at its very finest, these exquisite watches from Audemars Piguet combined a minute repeater, perpetual calendar and split-seconds complication – each prestigious on its own – into these achingly beautiful masterpieces.

Audemars Piguet is certainly one of the few manufactures best associated with such complications. Audemars Piguet, since its founding in 1875, specialized as a supplier of high complications to the finest Swiss and German brands in addition to selling watches under its own brand name.

Due to the economic challenges that followed World War II, most brands ceased the production of such extraordinarily costly pocket watches, but Audemars Piguet never stopped. This type of hand finished, ultra-complicated watch remains undervalued today, and presents an exciting opportunity for connoisseurs of the finest watches. The savvy wristwatch collector will clearly recognize that this pocket watch has strong aesthetical similarities with the AP reference 5516 Perpetual Calendar wristwatch - even though this model, the most valuable of all time, features neither a minute repeater, nor even a chronograph complication.