A 1927 Platinum Audemars Piguet Triple Calendar Heads to Monaco Legend's November Sale

On the back of a small rectangular platinum wristwatch sits a French hallmark and a jeweller's stock number, the marks of its sale in Paris in 1927 by Van Cleef & Arpels. Nearly a century later, the watch is lot 208 in the Monaco Legend Auctions sale on November 1, carrying an estimate of €200,000 to €400,000. It is an Audemars Piguet triple calendar with moon phase, and one of the top lots of the sale.

The watch comes from the years when the wristwatch was still a novelty and watchmakers were experimenting with forms and functions. Apart from the round trench watches made for soldiers, many of the landmark civilian designs of the era came in shaped cases, among them the Cartier Tank, the Santos and the Tonneau. Most such watches told only the time, but a tiny handful of clients wanted complications. Calendar watches, many of them in shaped cases, were in vogue, and most prestigious makers produced them on a minuscule, near-artisanal scale that made each piece almost unique. Breguet, for one, sold a tonneau-shaped retrograde perpetual calendar in 1935 to the romantic partner of Coco Chanel.

Audemars Piguet made fewer than 50 rectangular triple calendar wristwatches in the 30 years from 1924, and this is the only known example in platinum. All were powered by the calibre 10GHSM, as this one is, except the very first, made in 1924, which now sits in the Audemars Piguet museum. The watches share an outline but differ in detail, a product of small-scale, often manual production. This one has applied Breguet numerals and white gold Breguet hands, while the museum's piece has printed Arabic numerals and blued steel hands.

The watch shows its age, though it remains appealing and honest. Some of the wear, especially on the dial, appears to come from a clumsy attempt at cleaning in the past. The author notes that Audemars Piguet is especially good at sympathetic restoration of vintage watches, for any buyer inclined to go that way.

The path from maker to client was rarely direct. Every known example of this rectangular triple calendar was sold through a jeweller or retailer, and most carry the retailer's name. Some, like a 1925 example signed "A l'Emeraude" that Phillips sold in 2024, do not even bear the Audemars Piguet name. This one reached Van Cleef & Arpels through Egouvillon, Lafont et Cie., a Parisian diamond dealer that served as the Audemars Piguet agent at the time. Not long after the sale, that firm went bankrupt in the wake of the Great Depression.

Such chains were normal, since watch brands were tiny outfits with no commercial power and relied on agents, importers and retailers, while jewellers sold luxury goods made by other firms. Even the two most complicated historical Audemars Piguet watches followed the pattern: the record-setting Grosse Pièce of 1921 is signed "S. Smith & Son," the London firm that sold it, and the Universelle was delivered to Dürrstein & Co. and signed "Uhrenfabrik Union Gläshutte" on the dial.

This watch travelled from Le Brassus to Paris, but it has changed hands rarely since. Descendants of the original owner sold it in 2022, when the current consignor bought it for a little over €170,000. That makes two owners in about 99 years.

The author argues that early wristwatches, perhaps because of their small size and today's condition (most were not water resistant), lack a cachet equal to their historical value. Important ones still fetch substantial sums, but not extraordinary ones next to today's hyped watches, which arguably makes them strong value. The result on November 1 will test that view.