Our final live auction of the fall 2023 season is here. The PHILLIPS New York Watch Auction: NINE takes place on December 9 and 10, at our New York headquarters. The auction includes more than 150 of the world's finest watches – including the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Supersonnerie in titanium that is featured below.
– By Logan Baker
Audemars Piguet presented a new kind of repeating watch in 2016, one that they didn’t hesitate to describe as “the most technologically advanced minute repeater ever made,” earning it a most-impressive name: the Supersonnerie.
The primary goal of the Supersonnerie technology was to create a repeating wristwatch where the chime wouldn't be muffled when the watch was worn on the wrist. A chiming clocktower or pocket watch is typically much clearer than the chime of a traditional repeating wristwatch that's being worn. The former are free to transmit sound out of the movement, while the latter is deadened by the presence of skin on the wrist. Sure, if you chime sounds perfect while you're holding it, but shouldn't a wristwatch be able to fulfill its designated function on the wrist?
That was Audemars Piguet's goal – to develop the best repeating technology possible for watches worn on the wrist.
The first actual watch to come to market featuring the Supersonnerie technology was the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept RD#1 in 2015, which came with three patents that highlight the unique way the Supersonnerie works.
The first patent related to how the hardened steel gongs were manufactured. The second patent, meanwhile, concerned the architecture of the case. A typical wristwatch minute repeater would fix the gongs to the mainplate, which detracts from the acoustics of the chime. AP's approach with the Supersonnerie case involves hermetically sealing a copper alloy resonance membrane in between the mainplate and the caseback, and attaching the gongs to it.
The caseback, then, contains a number of small apertures that allow the chime to escape the movement and exit the watch without being muffled by skin contact.
The third and final patent granted for the Supersonnerie is about the governor. Audemars Piguet developed a new regulating governor system that takes the overall form of a conventional anchor-based system while minimizing any unnecessary sounds. This was achieved by developing a new shape for the anchor mechanism that allows it to have a second role, acting as shock absorption.
The result is the loudest and most intelligible repeating watches on the market. It's the only chiming wristwatch ever that is effectively louder on the wrist than it is off.
This revolutionary design has earned Audemars Piguet two separate GPHG awards – the 2016 Mechanical Exception prize for the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept Supersonnerie, and the 2019 Men's Complication prize for the CODE 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Minute Repeater Supersonnerie.
The Supersonnerie series has only ever been produced in extremely limited runs over the past eight years – but the first time it was offered in the traditional Royal Oak collection was 2019, when a 20-piece limited edition in titanium with a blue Grande Tappisserie dial was unveiled. A 35-piece run in titanium with a salmon dial was introduced in 2021.
Only two previous Royal Oak Supersonnerie watches have ever sold at auction, and they both took place in 2022. The first Supersonnerie of any kind to appear at Phillips is that 20-piece titanium, blue-dial run from 2019. It's lot 43 in this weekend's New York Watch Auction: NINE, carrying an estimate of between USD $200,000 and $400,000. It's also in near-new condition, having just returned from a factory service at Audemars Piguet in Le Brassus. It comes complete with its warranty card, presentation box, and even an additional salmon Grand Tapisserie dial that can be swapped in at your leisure.
You can learn more, place a bid, and view the entire New York Watch Auction: NINE catalog right here.
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 reporting on every aspect of the watch business. 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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