Audemars Piguet Quantième Perpétuel 5582BA

Flashy and refined, sounds like an impossible contradiction but this QP proves it's possible.

As the watch industry was buckling under the weight of the quartz crisis, Audemars Piguet introduced the world’s thinnest automatic movement with a perpetual calendar complication. The resulting line of precious metal dress watches was in production from 1978 until the 1990s and contained watches in different metals and with various dial options, often produced in small numbers.

The significance of the automatic perpetual calendar line is twofold. For one, it signaled Audemars Piguet’s return to its roots as a maker of high complications. Quite something at a time when the watch industry was experiencing a life-threatening crisis. Second, these watches, along with the recently introduced Royal Oak, allowed the company to grow rapidly while most of its competitors struggled or went under.

The epitome of a precious and exquisite automatic perpetual calendar. It is executed in a slim 18k yellow-gold case, measuring a classic 36 mm. Not only the bezel sports sparkles, so does the sumptuous factory-set integrated bracelet consisting of alternating diamond set bars and strings of gold beads.

The reference 5582 features a see-through dial that showcases the brands mechanical mastery and provides a unique visual appeal. The distinctive skeleton dial is constructed from transparent sapphire crystal and features warm champagne colour rings at the 3, 9, and 12 o’clock positions to display the day, month, and date, as well as a lovely moon phase indicator at 6 o’clock. The diamond theme of the case and bracelet is carried through by means of diamond-set hour markers.

The dial and the sapphire display case back give an unobstructed view of the unique open worked automatic movement. This movement was based on Jaeger LeCoultre’s legendary ultra-thin caliber 920 base movement, and was also used, among others, in Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak, Patek Philippe’s Nautilus, Vacheron Constantin’s 222. For the perpetual calendar line, Audemars Piguet reworked the base caliber to include a perpetual calendar complication. For the 5582, Audemars Piguet went even further by hand engraving the movement as well as the elaborately open worked rotor in 21k yellow-gold.

This exquisite variations was only produced in exceedingly small numbers, this one being number 5 among them. The watch was produced in 1984 -as stated on the extract on the archives- and is preserved in remarkable condition.

We are huge fans of the APQP Classique line. This beauty is, without a doubt, one of the rarest among them but if you want some more QP inspiration you can check out the following video made by the KOV; featuring this and many other examples you might have never even heard of: