Audemars Piguet White Gold Dress Watch ref. 5259, Silver Dial

Dealer description — Oliver & Clarke

The year 1972 was the advent of what is undeniably Audemars Piguet's most famous, significant, and yes, iconic line of watches, the Royal Oak. It was also the year that the 'high-end dress watch' would forever change. Prior to 1972, ultra-thin and design-focused precious metal watches represented the pinnacle of the genre, not what appears to be an industrial-styled stainless steel sports watch with a bracelet. While the brand never stopped producing traditional dress watches, per-se, production of their new golden goose would dominate the rest of the lineup. And this is after considering that prior to the Royal Oak, AP made far fewer watches to start with... The piece that we have here is one of those pre-Royal Oak era watches: an ultra-thin dress watch dating to circa the 1960s. Nicely-sized at 33.5mm in diameter, the case is constructed out of white gold with an attractive 'linen' finishing on the top-case, a white gold crown, and a matching white gold 'mesh' bracelet with a signed locking clasp. Inside, the silver dial inside is very of-its-era, with simple printed "Audemars Piguet" script, elongated 'stick' indices, and a 'pencil' handset to match. This svelte piece is powered by AP's ultra-thin Calibre 2001 manual-winding movement. Last but not least, this piece is accompanied by its box, certificate of origin, and even the outer paper sleeve for the box. A very rare find. This then, is a representation of a bygone era not just for Audemars Piguet, but for what a high-end dress watch used to be. Only in the last few years have collectors and enthusiasts alike started to pay a bit more attention to pieces like these and, we think, its long overdue.