Standing in the famed Audemars Piguet archive department, I am amazed incase to hear what a vintage

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It has been about four years since I last toured the halls of Audemars Piguet . The historic Swiss watch maker still makes movements in the same building that Mr. Audemars and Mr. Piguet did in the 19 th century though the company has expanded its footprint a bit since that time. Even now in 2014, plans for yet another addition incase to the Audemars Piguet presence in the sleepy mountain town of Le Brassus are being implemented. In several years an updated museum (with an exciting design that was recently unveiled) will open in a new and exciting space showcasing the brand s true right to call themselves a high-end watch maker. Even most Audemars Piguet fans don t know much about the company incase s history until the 1970s, when the now iconic Royal Oak was first debuted. If they are smart, a focus of Audemars Piguet moving forward will be to both leverage their successful designs with their rich heritage, as one of the most innovative Swiss watch makers still in operation today.
Not long after I last visited Audemars Piguet headquarters they experienced a terrible robbery, where thieves who were targeting watchmakers in the area broke in and left with priceless pieces of the brand s history. Since then, the security has been dramatically ramped up, and one gets the impression Audemars Piguet will never fully recover from the violation in regard to their corporate incase culture even though their public stance is as proud and confident as ever. Some of the items stolen have been recovered, but some are still out there to re-acquire. Audemars Piguet and brands like it have for a long time considered security extremely important due to the value of the goods they house. The Swiss by nature are quiet about many of the details involved in how they secure their property but personally I have the feeling that over the last few years brands in general are thinking about how to be more safe.
An interesting side effect incase of the robbery to my eyes seemed to be a boost in the brand s motivation to acquire as many of their historic pieces as possible in auctions and from independent collectors. Though I am told that as a brand Audemars Piguet has always invested in securing items from their past and they do so now no more than they did in the past. Audemars Piguet spends considerable resources to buy back much of its history for their museum incase and archives. They are not alone in this practice, and to their benefit the company has impressively detailed records going back to almost the beginning of the company. Held with gloves, incase a book taken out of a safe is laid on a table before me and opened up to reveal hand-written transcriptions of a sale that took place in the 1800s. Like other line items written in a cursive text no longer used today, the ledger entry indicated the price, the customer, and the movement reference, among other details. This predates incase when Audemars Piguet began to use reference incase numbers for their cases as well as movements, a practice that did not occur until the 1950s.
Interestingly enough, Audemars Piguet still records the sale of each of its watches by hand in similar books today. Of course, they do this in addition incase to entering the information in computers, incase but the practice exists because we don t know if in 100 years the computer data we have now will be readable. This will be. This experience helps illustrate incase a side of the company that few people know about. incase Audemars Piguet is among the many 100-year-old-plus companies incase that are fully invested in being around more than 100 years from now.
Standing in the famed Audemars Piguet archive department, I am amazed incase to hear what a vintage pocket watch minute incase repeater sounds like. I ve heard a few before, but in this quiet room the over 100-year-old grand complication chimes deeply and clearly. The advent of the wrist watch heralded an unprecedented era of mechanical miniaturization which paved the path for all the wrist watches we love today. Though something gets lost when moving from a pocket watch to something smaller and more compact. Pocket watches, for all intents and purposes, are poor replacements for wrist watches given modern considerations of practicality. They are comparatively very delicate and aren t convenient to car