AP Watch Collections

Audemars
Piguet

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Audemars Piguet Watch Collections
Chronographs The chronograph is a standart watch fitted with an auxiliary mechanism that measures and displays continuous or discontinuous spans of time without affecting the watch's time-keeping functions. Since 1845, its principle has remaine the same. A centre chronograph hand is started, stopped and restarted at will, then returned to zero by actioning one or more push-pieces.
Tourbillons Completing a full revolution, generally once a minute, the Tourbillon offsets the inevitable rate variations induced by gravity when the watch movement is posotioned vertically. Gravitational attraction accelerates or restrains the rotation of the balance wheel, causing the watch to run fast or slow.
Dynamograph Before lighting progressed beyond all lampd and candles and long before luminiscent wqatch and clocks dials ever appeared, AP had convienced a way to hear the time rather then read it. So quite early in its history, the company had begun turning out watches with a striking mechanism.
Jumping Hours Hard on the heels of Art Nouveau, the Art Deco style broke all existing rules with its geometric pattern and trim, understated design. Also breaking with the traditional analogue display of the time, AP turned out its first watches with "jumpinh hours". Instead of sedately sweeping around the deal, th ehour spring into a view in a deal window, replaced in a flash when its time is up.
Time Zones For the year 2000, AP has devised a timepiece specificaslly for world travellers. Called Metropolis, it provides local time in all 24 time zones directly, with no need to count or calculate. Metropolis is the first wristwatch ever to include both a perpetual calendar and universal time.
Star Wheel Effecting a complete rotation in three hours, a large centrally positioned wheel bears three thin discs made of transparent sapphire that rotate the turn. They are affixed th eight-toothed star wheel. each of the three rotatio discs is inscribed with four hour figures featuring a small triangular pointer showing the elapsed minutes on a dial segment graduated from 0 to 59.
Equation of Time Four times a year, the solar system has an appoinment with mathematics.Because on four special occasions, mean solar time(th eone watch dials show, which mathematicians modestly call their own) and true solar time( the sun's very own, appearing on sundials) briefly coincide. For the remainder of the year,they each go their own way. Mean time follows a strict pattern of hours, minutes and seconds. True time unfolds as the planets move. On same watch dials, however, a silent observer measures and dislays the difference between the two: th eequation-of-time pointer.
Large Date Calendar The double-digit disc alternately covers and reveals the single-digit disc's inscriptions.It has seven positions, as follows: a cut-out showing a single digit, 10 the 1 of tens, 20 the 2 of twenties, 30 and 31. Since positions 10 , 20 and 30 cover the single-digit disc, the latter no longer needs "0" position and manageswith nine positions instead of the usual ten. This innovative AP development makes reading the date easier,faster ans simply more pleasant.
Power Reserve The power-reserve indicator was inventerd very early in the history of mechanical watchmaking. Still found today on a number of AP models, it shows the time remaining before the mainspringgoes completely slack and the movement stops for lack of power.
Moon Phases The watchmakers solved the date-calendar challenge. But doing the same with the moon required a wheel with 29.5 teeth - roughly corresponding to a lunar month. Multiplication solved that problem: a disc with two facing moons could be actioned by a 59-tooth wheel- a solution that is both astute and elegant. This disc thus effects a complete rotation on itself over exactly 59 days, i.e. two full lunar months, displaying the current phase of the moon in a semicircular window in the dial.
Perpetual Calendar The design and production of calendar-equiped watches was the cornerstone of th e 1875 founding partnership between Jules-Louis Audemars and Edward-Auguste Piguet. Such timepieces have to this day remained a specialty of the company. A perpetual-alendar watch will even adjust automatically to leap years thanks to a special wheel in its mechanism that takes four full years to effect a complete rotation. It requires a single manual correction per century except, during the third millenium, in the years 2400 and 2800.
Grandes Complication Higly complex constructions, "Grande Complication" watches come in three main categories. The first comprises chronographs, including split-second and jumping-seconds designs, i.e. watches having one or more extra time-indication hands. The second covers all astriking and chiming watches. The third corresponds to watches incorporating machanism providing astronomic information, calendars, moon-phase indications and the equation of time. A true "Grande Complication" associates in some way all three families.