Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Platinum Skeleton

About the Watch

In 1971 Audemars Piguet realized that, without a disruptive change, a financial collapse was inevitable. Elaborating some feedback that they received from the Italian market about possible interest for a steel luxury watch, the management of the manufacture decided it was time to introduce something totally new, a sporty yet elegant timepiece as never seen before. The designer of choice for this task was a designer born in Geneva in 1931 from an Italian father and a Swiss mother: Gerald Genta. Not a new designer, rather one of the most famous watch designer at that time, having created successful watches for Universal Genève (Polerouter Microtors, White Shadow, Golden Shadow), Omega (Constellation) and Patek Philippe (Golden Ellipse).

The Royal Oak 14882 showcases its ultra-thin (1.64 mm), fully openworked 14-carat gold mechanism within a finely engraved gold bezel. The gold "leaf-type" hands are blackened for improved legibility. In 1994, the first version of this model combined steel and tantalum—a dense, biocompatible metal as heavy as gold and extremely challenging to shape, which Audemars Piguet had introduced in 1988 with the Royal Oak Model 14486. The dark grey tantalum contrasts beautifully with the light grey steel, highlighting the pink gold mechanism.

Two years later, in 1996, precious metal variants in pink gold and platinum were introduced, each produced in series of fewer than 10 pieces. While the technical specifications for the yellow gold, steel, and two-tone versions are preserved in the Audemars Piguet archives, production records do not list any watches in these materials.

This model is the number 3 of only 9 watches produced in solid platinum and comes as a full set with original Royal Oak Box, extract of archives and undated Audemars Piguet origin certificate as well as a warranty.

About the Brand

The Manufacture was established in 1875 in Le Brassus, a village at the heart of La Vallée-de-Joux in the Swiss Jura, by Jules-Louis Audemars and Edward-Auguste Piguet, two enterprising young men who combined their talent to develop and produce watches featuring rare complications. Already in these early days, an Audemars-Piguet watch was prized by admirers of fine mechanical timepieces. Through determination, imagination and discipline, they inscribed their name on the wider history of watchmaking. The company they established has never left the hands of the founding families.