Audemars Piguet

Hi 👋 All, Saw these lovely frosted gold watches. All I can say is

Sep 18, 2021,16:29 PM

WOW 🤩 !!!

The photos don’t do justice on just how great they look and feel in the metal. Vincent the senior sales associate at AP house informed me that in 2016 AP started frosted gold in collaboration with famous jewelry designer Carolina Bucci (4th generation jeweler) for the 40^th anniversary of female RO. To me, the current range (34mm, 37mm and 41mm) is simply lovely for both men and women.

The frost is created by a hand held tool with a striking diamond tip that moves 200 times per second ! At first, it took up to 2 days to completely frost a RO, and apparently the technicians after a day’s work would go home with their hands/bodies shaking. Now with more experience and better techniques, the process would still take several hours for one watch. Here is a link to an AP video on frosted gold on youtube: https://youtu.be/xGYf2B-ukvc

Both double balance wheel openworked is well executed with wonderful color schemes. After doing some research, I found out that back in the 30s during the global recession, many brands (AP included) focused on skeletonized watches to reduce material costs. In 1934, AP released the first skeletonized watch (similar to the 1285 below)

Image above is from taking a picture of a photo from Spiral magazine☝️

What are your thoughts on these frosted gold watches and which one(s) do you like or dislike and why ?

Interesting that Ap "brags" about doing the frosting like this...

By: BigFatPauli : September 18th, 2021-16:46

The actual traditional method, called peening, is the manual process of what they have imitated. Basically a small point and hammer make each tiny indentation. One. By. One. You can see it being done, by hand, at the 22 second mark in the video. And it's ...

Does rexhep actually personally perform all of the finishing on these akrivia masterpieces? Is he skilled in all the skills?

By: Lankysudanese : September 18th, 2021-16:59

Does anyone actually know?

No, he doesn't personally do all the finishing.

By: BigFatPauli : September 18th, 2021-17:10

As I understand it, there is a team of 6 people including him and his partner, Annabelle. Certain parts of the watch are also outsourced. The case, for example, are made by Jean-Pierre Hagmann so Rexhepi has help.

Thanks BFP. That was my previous impression, from his interviews on watchestv's youtube channel etc.

By: Lankysudanese : September 18th, 2021-17:22

A big fan of his work. The video you embedded made it same like he DID perform all the tasks.

And perhaps he can and has in the past...

By: BigFatPauli : September 18th, 2021-17:51

But Akrivia has grown and he only has so many hours in the day.

His IG account makes it clear that he’s perfected the work/life balance,

By: Lankysudanese : September 18th, 2021-17:55

which undoubtedly plays a part in his design and production of his masterpieces . 😉💪🏿

It sure does :) :) :)

By: BigFatPauli : September 18th, 2021-18:30

...

Thanks for enlightening us with peening ! Peening is definitely

By: GLau : September 19th, 2021-17:54

more tedious and labor intensive ! To me, the AP frosted gold watches look plenty good and apparently are highly sought after (see below reply by lankysudanese and holdemchamp1225). AP fully disclosed how they are made with time required and at no point c...

Thanks for sharing. Wonderful photography from a boutique-setting, too. Bravo

By: Lankysudanese : September 18th, 2021-18:01

They aren't to my taste (I got into AP for being daring/brave enough to break the rules [back in 1972] by producing a luxury timepiece in steel but at gold prices) but AP hardly cares for my opinion as all their non-CODE pieces are unobtainable, and these...