Of the thousands of watches that appear on the market every year, few remain in collections for one to two decades. Historical epochs are experiencing several units, and these units are really beautiful - these are the legends of horology.
Audemars Piguet, Royal Oak 1972
"You are crazy to offer steel watches at the price of gold" - that's what you could hear in 1972 about the Royal Oak watches presented at that time. And not because the company Audemars Piguet decided to release these watches to make it sound cool, - the fact is that scrupulously finished steel case and bracelet cost in production more expensive than gold.
So that at the Basel exhibition in 1972, the public was shown a prototype made instead of steel from white gold. Contrary to skeptical expectations, a series of thousands of copies was quickly sold out, and now it is difficult for a collector to catch a real copy of Royal Oak Jumbo (this is what they called this watch because of the rather large 39-mm case at that time) from the very first A series.
This model is unique, since it is still produced almost unchanged.