113rd Auction

2025/11/8

Lot 72

Audemars Piguet & Co.

An extremely rare, exquisite minute repeating pocket watch with split seconds chronograph and 30 min. counter

Sold

estimated
18.00025.000 €
Price realized
22.500 €
specific features
Case
18 K gold, smooth.
Dial
Enamel.
Movement
Bridge movement, 2 hammers / 2 gongs, lever escapement, gold screw compensation balance.
Case no.5074
Cal.18''' SMCCRV
Diam.48 mm
Circa1893
Ctry.Switzerland
Wt.91 g


Audemars Piguet’s finest quality
Around 1890 Audemars Piguet began offering their movements in four quality levels: "Extra", "I", "II", and "III". Highly complicated movements though were only ever created in levels "Extra" and "I". Jules Audemars and Edward Piguet personally wrote several booklets with explicit instructions on the finishing of the movements for their watchmakers. Based on these instructions, a record card would be created for every single watch where every step of the work had to be filled in and signed off by the watchmaker in charge. Upon completion of a watch it had to be presented to either Jules Audemars or Edward Piguet for final inspection. No watch was ever send to a customer without having first been approved by one of the two company owners.
Lit.: Gisbert Brunner, Christian Pfeiffer-Belli, Martin K. Wehrli, "Audemars Piguet", Munich 1992, p. 48.