Thoughts After a Few Years of an AP Journey

[macrowatch]

As they say the days are long but the years are short. And the last 3 years has breezed by in a flash.

I remember first wondering if I wanted to splurge so much money for a mere SS watch when I could get another PM Rolex. I leave these thoughts here in case it helps another collector along the way. I find it very difficult as a watch wearer to know what I will end up liking by only looking at photos and not having an extended test drive to know how I feel about it after the honeymoon periods is over. But I guess that's watch collecting in the 2020's even with a deflated bubble.

Again, all these opinions are highly personal to me on what resonates with my eyes and draws me to a watch.

-Amazingly, I found I really like the waffle dial over the open work look (for the life of my I can't spell the t word close enough for google to find it...flame suit on..) I appreciated the open work for what it was...but for an AP I found always drawn by the way the light reflects off the silicon nature of the waffles.

-I am really, really, particular about case height both because of how it fits under shirt cuffs and how it sits or rather starts flopping my wrists when it's too tall. For this reason I found all code Chronos currently too thick, and sadly the new ROC's too thick as well for my taste. I'm only okay with the ROO case height because the whole thing feels like a tankish angular Panerai. So might as well be tall and big.

-Asymmetrical subdials kinda bother me when it's the only choice, and it really bothers me when there's a choice with perfect symmetry. This is what irked me with the 26331 vs 26320/26420 dials. Almost as if they choose to just be annoying for people with OCD. They could have made it symmetrical but then chose not to.

-I love display case back. No surprise to anyone spending this kind of money, but the closed case back just made the watch feel very cheap to me at this price range.

-15500 vs 15400 vs 15510?? Well, in the end I felt all of these felt very dinner plate and empty. More cluttered subdials, i.e. full on perpetual calendar addresses all these issues.

Random experiences for newbies:
-Yes the bezel and case are fragile AF. Not as bad as literally scratching if you breath on it...but it's not far from an exaggeration. Run into a wooden table at lunch meeting from lap to table top? Dent. Run into car door? Double dent. Does it matter enough to not own or wear? Not really because the low marginal cost to polish or rebuild the watch with new parts means I could just wear for enjoyment knowing it can always make it mint and literally new Theseus Ship kind of way.
-Yes, the watch is 'worth' the high price tag even though it's steel. Just treat it like a Ferrari IMHO, the cost is not the price tag, it's the maintenance and upkeep and insurance. If you can fortunately afford the latter, it's worth the cost of enjoyment.
-As with most things in life, if time is worth more than money, or if time is scarce but money is abundant, then just go with gray. Except for maybe 6 months in this journey, almost at all points was it better off for me (not from a price tag stand point, just from a time standpoint) to get the watch sooner to enjoy. The lack of pieces to buy on second hand for the genuinely rare, e.g. PT perpetual or rainbow openworked means the secondary price is a bit meaningless and arbitrary anyways.
-I remain incredibly grateful for all the advice and wisdom shared both publicly and privately from much more knowledgeable forum members to assist me on this journey. And I remain grateful for the luck and grace life has afforded me to enjoy these pleasures.

Cheers.

[GS93108]

Dude, how to win friends and influence people. Very cool post. I'd love to read more of these types of post.

Double fist bump.

[psm11]

Originally Posted by macrowatch

As they say the days are long but the years are short. And the last 3 years has breezed by in a flash.

I remember first wondering if I wanted to splurge so much money for a mere SS watch when I could get another PM Rolex. I leave these thoughts here in case it helps another collector along the way. I find it very difficult as a watch wearer to know what I will end up liking by only looking at photos and not having an extended test drive to know how I feel about it after the honeymoon periods is over. But I guess that's watch collecting in the 2020's even with a deflated bubble.

Again, all these opinions are highly personal to me on what resonates with my eyes and draws me to a watch.

-Amazingly, I found I really like the waffle dial over the open work look (for the life of my I can't spell the t word close enough for google to find it...flame suit on..) I appreciated the open work for what it was...but for an AP I found always drawn by the way the light reflects off the silicon nature of the waffles.

-I am really, really, particular about case height both because of how it fits under shirt cuffs and how it sits or rather starts flopping my wrists when it's too tall. For this reason I found all code Chronos currently too thick, and sadly the new ROC's too thick as well for my taste. I'm only okay with the ROO case height because the whole thing feels like a tankish angular Panerai. So might as well be tall and big.

-Asymmetrical subdials kinda bother me when it's the only choice, and it really bothers me when there's a choice with perfect symmetry. This is what irked me with the 26331 vs 26320/26420 dials. Almost as if they choose to just be annoying for people with OCD. They could have made it symmetrical but then chose not to.

-I love display case back. No surprise to anyone spending this kind of money, but the closed case back just made the watch feel very cheap to me at this price range.

-15500 vs 15400 vs 15510?? Well, in the end I felt all of these felt very dinner plate and empty. More cluttered subdials, i.e. full on perpetual calendar addresses all these issues.

Random experiences for newbies:
-Yes the bezel and case are fragile AF. Not as bad as literally scratching if you breath on it...but it's not far from an exaggeration. Run into a wooden table at lunch meeting from lap to table top? Dent. Run into car door? Double dent. Does it matter enough to not own or wear? Not really because the low marginal cost to polish or rebuild the watch with new parts means I could just wear for enjoyment knowing it can always make it mint and literally new Theseus Ship kind of way.
-Yes, the watch is 'worth' the high price tag even though it's steel. Just treat it like a Ferrari IMHO, the cost is not the price tag, it's the maintenance and upkeep and insurance. If you can fortunately afford the latter, it's worth the cost of enjoyment.
-As with most things in life, if time is worth more than money, or if time is scarce but money is abundant, then just go with gray. Except for maybe 6 months in this journey, almost at all points was it better off for me (not from a price tag stand point, just from a time standpoint) to get the watch sooner to enjoy. The lack of pieces to buy on second hand for the genuinely rare, e.g. PT perpetual or rainbow openworked means the secondary price is a bit meaningless and arbitrary anyways.
-I remain incredibly grateful for all the advice and wisdom shared both publicly and privately from much more knowledgeable forum members to assist me on this journey. And I remain grateful for the luck and grace life has afforded me to enjoy these pleasures.

Cheers.

Great stuff! Thank you for this!

[VogelPhoenix]

Thanks for sharing (although I'm glad I'm not as picky as you)!

[thekman]

I share your frustration with the 4:30 placement of the date window on the 26331st however I have to say it's so far my favorite RO I have owned between it a 15500ST, 15510ST and 15450ST. I just love the contrasting reverse panda dial much more than any of the newer or older ROCs. So I am willing to disregard the less than stellar date placement.
Regarding the sizing of most APs I would love for them to go back to 39 being the default larger size rather than 41.

[jts278]

Thanks for sharing! I’m based in HK too and agree with almost all your points! My 41mm is a QP and all my pieces are display case back from AP. Gotta admit though that my Code Chrono in WG/black ceramic is just the right size and a perfect daily wearer even at the gym haha

[dr.ns23]

Thanks for sharing!!

[rtanjaya]

Originally Posted by macrowatch

A
-15500 vs 15400 vs 15510?? Well, in the end I felt all of these felt very dinner plate and empty. More cluttered subdials, i.e. full on perpetual calendar addresses all these issues.

After acquiring a PC recently, i can totally relate and agree on this.

Nice post!

[Ichiran]

Thanks for sharing - I do like reading such posts.

[Mercutio]

Great post - thank you very much for your thorough thoughts!

[sigma089]

Great post, thanks for sharing!

Curious to hear your thoughts on the missing AP logo on the new generation RO dials compared to the last gen. 155XX vs 154XX and chronos. What's your take on it from an aesthetical perspective?

[cascavel]

A beautiful, sensitively written post. Thank you.
But I'm at something of a loss, what APs do you like? Asymmetric dials are out which seems to include openwork, tall cases are out, so no ROOs, big empty dials are out so 41mm ROs.
Seems like you're left with 15300 and 15202. Not that I have a problem with that, they're the only one's I like.

[squall1]

This...is a good post. Thanks OP!

[jgottsman11]

Originally Posted by cascavel

A beautiful, sensitively written post. Thank you.
But I'm at something of a loss, what APs do you like? Asymmetric dials are out which seems to include openwork, tall cases are out, so no ROOs, big empty dials are out so 41mm ROs.
Seems like you're left with 15300 and 15202. Not that I have a problem with that, they're the only one's I like.

15300 is the move nowadays

[knyshcollection]

Thanks for sharing your story!

[mykii]

Originally Posted by rtanjaya

After acquiring a PC recently, i can totally relate and agree on this.

Nice post!

I agree too, which is why I thikn 37-39mm works best for a RO.

[macrowatch]

Thanks for the kind words everyone.

Originally Posted by thekman

I share your frustration with the 4:30 placement of the date window on the 26331st however I have to say it's so far my favorite RO I have owned between it a 15500ST, 15510ST and 15450ST. I just love the contrasting reverse panda dial much more than any of the newer or older ROCs.

I'm with you, I love the contrasting subdials! But you know, when the code chrono came out with uneven subdials, I thought, okay, maybe that's just how things are going to be going foward with this movement. Then ROC comes out with same size subdials on the movement...and...grrr.....

Originally Posted by sigma089

Curious to hear your thoughts on the missing AP logo on the new generation RO dials compared to the last gen. 155XX vs 154XX and chronos. What's your take on it from an aesthetical perspective?

Personally I don't like the text only logo for the RO. Audemars Piguet is inherently not symmetrical written out, unlike say the words Rolex or Datejust. The AP logo in conjunction with the name just helped center everything visually to offset the imbalance in the last gen 26331/15500.

Second, I feel visually the spacing on the text pulls the eyes outward instead of inward. On the RO this makes the rest of the dial appear more empty than it would otherwise, and on the ROC gives the watch a wider/fatter visually feeling. Again just throwing it off balance for me.

I can live with it on the RO, but it feels really off on the ROC after having had the 26331 for so long now.

Originally Posted by cascavel

A beautiful, sensitively written post. Thank you.
But I'm at something of a loss, what APs do you like?

Hi, my name is Macrowatch and I'm a watchaholic. I think they're all beautiful! Only as an online keyboard warrior do I pit one model to the death versus another.

Jokes aside, rtanjaya and I must have very similar tastes as mine -- the 26574 comes out on top of my power rankings.

[cascavel]

I'm really stunned that the 26574 is even in your wheelhouse, I pegged you as a Zen Garden purist. Honestly, I figured you had a 16202 on order, assuming you didn't already own one.
I have a 15202 and, many years ago, gave up trying to set the date. I can't imagine trying to recalibrate a Perpetual Calendar after it's been idle a few months.
I guess I'm in the camp of jgottsman11; the perfect RO was the 15300.

[sigma089]

Originally Posted by macrowatch

Personally I don't like the text only logo for the RO. Audemars Piguet is inherently not symmetrical written out, unlike say the words Rolex or Datejust. The AP logo in conjunction with the name just helped center everything visually to offset the imbalance in the last gen 26331/15500.

Thanks! I feel the same way. I'm currently looking for a reasonably priced 15450 precisly for that reason. Can't get over the dial design of the 15550 despite the welcome PR improvement and slimmer profile.