In the early 1990s, Audemars Piguet tasked its in-house designer Emmanuel Gueit to reinvent the classic Royal Oak model and infuse it with new life and power. For years, Gueit and his team worked on a prototype and subsequently presented the final product, reference 25721, in 1993 at Basel. The result was astonishing and something completely different from what the public had ever seen before. It was shortly nicknamed “The Beast” due to what was, at the time, its astonishing 42mm case size. The launch of reference 25721 marked the beginning of the Offshore lineage. In fact, it arguably established the trend for large-sized watches, which today is the complete norm.

The present "E Series" version features a beautiful dial that has turned brown over the years. This "tropical" effect is completely astonishing, and the brown tone is incredibly saturated. There is no telling how a watch will turn in tone over time, and this particular example has aged in a stunning manner. As an added detail, it is accompanied by its Certificate of Origin, presentation box adding another layer of collectibility. Most interestingly, the original owner was incredibly close to Audemars Piguet, and bought the timepiece directly from the manufacture and not a boutique, which explains the blank guarantee - in fact, the internal Audemars Piguet archives note that the watch was sold directly to this individual client.