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An Audemars Piguet Equation of Time with Monaco at its zenith

In 1875, Jules-Louis Audemars and Edward-Auguste Piguet, young men both passionately dedicated to fine watchmaking, decided to unite their skills to design and produce watches with complex mechanisms. They settled in La Vallée de Joux, the cradle of Haute Horlogerie.

That was the beginning of the Audemars Piguet story. Over the years, the manufactory developed many high complications such as the world’s smallest hand-wound movement and the first ultra-thin self-winding tourbillon wristwatch. In 1972, Audemars Piguet launched the Royal Oak, the first steel high-end sports watch which was an immediate success and became the icon of the brand.

Today,” says Philippe Merk, CEO of Audemars Piguet, “the brand, still owned by the founding families, continues to preserve the family spirit and values inspired by its founders: tradition, excellence and the daring that brought our brand to the highest segment of watchmaking. For our third participation in Only Watch, Audemars Piguet is offering a beautiful Jules Audemars Equation of Time watch, a unique piece engraved on the flange, ‘Only Watch Monaco 12h30’ – the true solar time in Monaco.”

“We chose the Equation of Time,” says Octavio Garcia, Group Artistic Manager, “because of its uniqueness. It represents many of the innovations and complications we at Audemars Piguet have learned throughout the development of the brand. The magical thing about the Equation of Time lies in the fact that our customers can personalize their watch choosing a city anywhere in the world. The watch will give him the true zenith of the sun in his favorite city, village or spot. For the Only Watch 2009, the Equation of Time shows the zenith for Monaco and indicates sunrise and sunset times, perpetual calendar and also astronomical moon.”

True noon, when the sun is at its zenith, depends on the longitude of the place where the observation is made – always taking into consideration the equation-of-time differential, save on 15 April, 14 June, 1 September, and 24 December. This differential ranges from minus 16 minutes 23 seconds on 4 November to plus 14 minutes 22 seconds on 11 February. The equation-of-time pointer fitted on the watch dial’s central axis shows this differential, true noon corresponding to its position exactly over the minute hand, and the hour hand, providing the local time of solar culmination in Monaco as confirmed on the flange.

Sunrise and sunset times

At the equator, the duration of days and nights is the same throughout the year. The greater the distance from the equator, the greater their seasonal variations; during solstices at the poles, the sun either never sets or never rises above the horizon. The watch’s sub-dials, with 0-to-12 graduations, show the times at which the sun respectively rises and sets throughout the year at the latitude for Monaco. The hands of these dials are driven by the two cams precisely machined to within the nearest thousandth of a millimeter.

The perpetual calendar

All perpetual-calendar indications are positioned along the 12 o’clock – 6 o’clock axis. With no need for a manual correction before 1 March 2100, it displays the 29 February every leap year thanks to a special wheel that takes four years to effect a complete rotation. The movement is also thinner by a few tenths of a millimeter thanks to an original advance mechanism for superfluous end-of-month days.

The astronomical moon

With a standard perpetual-calendar mechanism, the lunar cycle requires a correction every two years and seven months. Thanks to the astronomical moon that Audemars Piguet’s master-watchmakers have fitted on the Jules Audemars Equation of Time design, a watch adjusted in the year 2005 requires no lunar-cycle adjustment whatsoever until a simple press on the appropriate push-piece in 2127. Compared to the 59 teeth of a standard “horological” moon mechanism, the gear-train driving the Audemars Piguet moon comprises 135 teeth, and its differential with the actual moon cycle amounts to a mere 57 and 1/5th seconds compared to 44 minutes and 2 and 4/5th seconds for a standard “horological” moon.

“The Equation of Time is the first project I designed in 2003 when I came to Audemars Piguet,” says Garcia. “It was a challenging project because we went from a watch that was 39mm in diameter to one that was 43mm. This resulted in lots of design and technical changes.”

The technical changes were mostly in the case of the watch, which needed to be more ergonomic. The fact that the watch is bigger means that it sits differently on the wrist, so that meant that they had to study how the lugs fell around the wrist in order to create a comfortable wrist fitting.

This watch, probably one of the most complicated movements in the world, is a very poetic rendition of the Equation of Time with the true zenith indicated by a special hand in the shape of a sun. The dial has a spiral flanké guillochage with applied Roman numerals in gold. The color scheme of this watch has been specifically created for Only Watch – it is the first time they have made a bi-color Equation of Time dial.

The watch, made from over 400 parts, comes in a special luxury presentation case, which also contains the highly detailed Audemars Piguet Equation of Time book. The watchcase and movement are completely hand-finished and the case back has a large sapphire crystal back through which you can truly appreciate the complex movement. The oscillating mass is skeletonized with the “AP” logo and completely hand-engraved.

 

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For more information contact: Ita McCobb
Patrizzi & Co Auctioneers SA
Tel +41 22 318 28 38
e-mail i.mccobb@patrizziauction.com

Audrey Baylac
Association Monégasque contre les Myopathies / Monaco Yacht Show
Tel +377 93 10 41 70
e-mail audrey@monacoyachtshow.mc