Our first live auction of 2023, the PHILLIPS Geneva Watch Auction: XVII, takes place on May 13 and 14, at La Réserve Genève. The auction includes more than 200 of the world's finest watches – and though we are loath to boast, we truly think it's one of the best catalogs we've ever put together. We'll be highlighting a number of the most interesting lots and stories featured in the sale over the next month, including the rare 18k yellow-gold Audemars Piguet Photo reference 831 with caliber 13VZAQ seen here.
– By Logan Baker
There’s more to Audemars Piguet than the Royal Oak – a lot more.
The company was founded almost 150 years ago, and to this day, it's the only Swiss watch brand from the 19th century that remains in the hands of its founding family. Some of the most collectible watches in Audemars Piguet's long history from the pre-Royal Oak era are the various chronograph wristwatches built by the firm before 1950.
Famous watches such as the two-tone ref. 1533 (which inspired the [Re]master01 revival in 2020) were born in this period, and so was the 18k yellow gold ref. 831 full calendar chronograph featured in the Geneva Watch Auction: XVII. All of these watches were produced in extremely small numbers. Only three examples of the two-tone ref. 1533 were made, and only eight examples of the yellow-gold ref. 831 were built.
In total, Audemars Piguet created only total 307 chronograph wristwatches in the pre-Royal Oak era, fewer than its competitors at Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin. Audemars Piguet was impacted significantly by the global economic crisis that occurred in the 1930s following the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
By the end of the 1930s, the firm started to increase its scope to include more complicated wristwatches than they had produced in the past; between 1939 and 1945, they produced 210 of the total 307 pre-Royal Oak chronograph wristwatches. These watches were often created in collaboration with a client or a specific retail partner, resulting in a number of watches from this era having retailer-signed dials.
Many of these watches utilized a version of the 13VZ chronograph movement, which was based on the hand-wound Valjoux 13-ligne that was also used by Patek Philippe in their iconic perpetual calendar chronograph ref. 1518. At Audemars Piguet, the 13VZ base chronograph movement could be reinterpreted in many ways.
For example, a few of the options included the 13VZA, a chronograph with a minutes totalizer; the 13VZH, a chronograph with hours and minutes counter; and the 13VZAQ, which combined a chronograph with a full (AKA, “complete”) calendar featuring day, date, month, and moon phase.
Between 1941 and 1943, Audemars Piguet created only 20 total wristwatches with the 13VZAQ. The complete calendar cadrature was developed by Alfred Aubert. These watches took a while to find homes, and the records state they were cased and sold over a 17-year period, from 1942 to 1959. Audemars Piguet wouldn't revisit the complete calendar/chronograph combination again until 1992.
The ref. 831 is one of those original watches. Audemars Piguet's archives reveal that only 10 examples of the ref. 831 were produced in total, with eight in 18k yellow gold and a pair in steel and pink gold. (Five of the remaining 10 watches with the caliber 13VZAQ fell under the ref. 5503' the final five were produced under either the ref. 5509 or ref. 7020.)
Audemars Piguet didn’t begin enforcing strict reference specifications until 1950, which makes most previous timepieces produced by the company unique in some fashion. Even watches with the same reference number could have slight dial and case variations between them.
The ref. 831 included in the Geneva Watch Auction: XVII has a 33mm 18k yellow gold case with short lugs and cushion-shaped pushers. The three-tone dial comes together with a creamy mainplate, salmon chronograph registers, and silver French-language calendar displays stacked inside the running seconds (day of week) and 30-minute chronograph (month) sub-dials.
The tachymeter scale is printed in light blue text on the periphery of the dial, and the bosom-style moonphase at six o’clock has a blue background and the gilt moon is textured. Even the heat-blued chronograph central seconds hand curves along with the crystal. The hour markers are three-dimensional gold blocks applied to the dial surface, which is signed “Audemars, Piguet, & Co.”
According to Audemars Piguet, the example included in the Geneva Watch Auction: XVII was produced on August 14, 1943. The caliber 13VZAQ inside is signed by Audemars Piguet and has the number “45'978,” while the case is number 45'978. It has an estimate of CHF 150,000 - 300,000.
You can learn more about and register to bid on this 18k yellow-gold Audemars Piguet Photo Reference 831 with caliber 13VZAQ by visiting the online catalog for PHILLIPS Geneva Watch Auction: XVII.
About Phillips In Association With Bacs & Russo
The team of specialists at PHILLIPS Watches is dedicated to an uncompromised approach to quality, transparency, and client service. Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo holds the world record for the most successful watch auction, with its Geneva Watch Auction: XIV having realized $74.5 million in 2021. Over the course of 2021 and 2022, the company sold 100% of the watches offered, a first in the industry, resulting in the highest annual total in history across all the auction houses at $227 million.
About Logan Baker
Logan has spent the past decade working in watch-focused media, reporting on every aspect of the industry. He joined Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo at the start of 2023 as the department's Senior Editorial Manager. He splits his time between New York and Geneva.
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