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Lot Essay
Audemars Piguet is renowned as one of the true masters in the production of complicated and unconventional wristwatches. Fittingly for the present model, the manufacture was also the first to produce a jumping-hour wristwatch in 1921. While Audemars Piguet is celebrated for its traditional approach to high watchmaking, the introduction of the jumping-hour wristwatch marked a bold and forward-thinking departure from convention. By dispensing with the familiar rotation of the hour hand in favour of a striking digital-style display, the concept must have appeared remarkably futuristic to contemporary audiences.
Dating from the 1920s, the present superb and extremely rare example is housed in a rectangular white gold case of classic and elegant Art Deco design. Its charmingly mellow, patinated silvery-white dial is remarkably avant-garde for the period, featuring an unusual jumping-hour display. Rather than employing a traditional hour hand, the hour is indicated digitally through a small aperture positioned at 12 o’clock. As a result, conventional hour markers are replaced by 5-minute numerals, allowing the minutes to be read from the centrally mounted minute hand, while the seconds are displayed on a subsidiary dial at 6 o’clock. The resulting design is both highly functional and strikingly modern, particularly for a watch created more than a century ago.
In keeping with Audemars Piguet’s finest watchmaking traditions of the era, the case is fitted with a snap-on caseback and houses the ultra-thin calibre 10GHSM. Produced between 1924 and 1931 in only 698 examples, the calibre served as the foundation for several different configurations: 107 movements were fitted with calendar mechanisms, while the remaining examples were used for jumping-hour watches or watches with conventional dials. This versatile and venerable movement therefore played an important role in Audemars Piguet’s complicated wristwatch production during the period, including its celebrated early calendar models.
Today, fewer than a handful of such wristwatches are known to the market. Combining exceptional rarity and historical significance with an undeniably modern aesthetic far ahead of its time, the present early Audemars Piguet jumping-hour wristwatch represents a compelling opportunity for the collector to acquire one of the manufacture’s most daring and innovative early creations.
Dating from the 1920s, the present superb and extremely rare example is housed in a rectangular white gold case of classic and elegant Art Deco design. Its charmingly mellow, patinated silvery-white dial is remarkably avant-garde for the period, featuring an unusual jumping-hour display. Rather than employing a traditional hour hand, the hour is indicated digitally through a small aperture positioned at 12 o’clock. As a result, conventional hour markers are replaced by 5-minute numerals, allowing the minutes to be read from the centrally mounted minute hand, while the seconds are displayed on a subsidiary dial at 6 o’clock. The resulting design is both highly functional and strikingly modern, particularly for a watch created more than a century ago.
In keeping with Audemars Piguet’s finest watchmaking traditions of the era, the case is fitted with a snap-on caseback and houses the ultra-thin calibre 10GHSM. Produced between 1924 and 1931 in only 698 examples, the calibre served as the foundation for several different configurations: 107 movements were fitted with calendar mechanisms, while the remaining examples were used for jumping-hour watches or watches with conventional dials. This versatile and venerable movement therefore played an important role in Audemars Piguet’s complicated wristwatch production during the period, including its celebrated early calendar models.
Today, fewer than a handful of such wristwatches are known to the market. Combining exceptional rarity and historical significance with an undeniably modern aesthetic far ahead of its time, the present early Audemars Piguet jumping-hour wristwatch represents a compelling opportunity for the collector to acquire one of the manufacture’s most daring and innovative early creations.