Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Selfwinding Chronograph 26331ST

The Origins

Launched in 1972 as the world’s first stainless steel luxury sports watch, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak has undergone an incredible transformation over the decades from zero to hero that has put it at the epicentre of the watchmaking boom that has gripped the last 6+ years. Designed by the enigmatic Gerald Genta, the Royal Oak’s origin story is born in the midst of the Quartz Crisis, when mechanical timepieces were experiencing a steep decline in demand due to the cheaper, more accurate and far-trendier Japanese quartz watches flooding the market. 

In response to this, Audemars Piguet decided to create a new category of watch. So their Managing Director at the time, Georges Golay, sought the assistance of Gerald Genta in 1970, one day before Baselworld, to create a sports watch “that had never been done before” and Genta certainly delivered. With its unique design, exceptional craftsmanship and incredibly high price point, the Royal Oak was aesthetically unlike other sports watches from the time, but more importantly also far more expensive. 

As a result, the Royal Oak failed to have the immediate impact on the market that AP had intended. However, this began to change after the first 1000 examples were sold by the one-year mark, and by the mid-1970s, the Royal Oak had begun to sink its teeth into the cultural zeitgeist within watchmaking. This is perhaps most prevalent with the release of the Patek Philippe Nautilus in 1976, which signalled that the Royal Oak was truly ahead of the curve. 

In the decades following, the Royal Oak collection continued to expand and grow, and today, it has come to symbolise the exceptional power of creating unique watches that break from convention. Arguably one of the most sought-after collections across the entire industry, not only AP’s catalogue, the Royal Oak boasts one of the longest waiting lists in all of watchmaking as collectors seek to add a piece of watchmaking heritage to their collections. 

While its time and date-only configuration is perhaps its most classical, the Royal Oak has included a chronograph variant since the late 1990s, following the launch of the Royal Oak Offshore, a chronograph-boasting Royal Oak-inspired collection from 1993. Since then, the Royal Oak Chronograph has epitomised the sporty essence of the Royal Oak’s original inspiration, and today includes a plethora of incredible references just like the ref. 26331ST.

Case and Dial

A distinctly modern take on the Royal Oak Chronograph collection as a whole, the ref. 26331ST was launched in 2019 with an updated aesthetic to that of the ref. 26320ST, which it had replaced. As part of its series of updates, it boasted a new dial design made up of a series of small changes that were combined with some of the Royal Oak’s signature details, such as its “Grande Tapisserie” engraved pattern. These changes were its larger AP logo at 12 o’clock, its thicker applied hour markers, its non-centered date aperture at 4:30 and its large chronograph subdials, which when all combined resulted in an aesthetic befitting of the Royal Oak’s aggressive and avant-garde design. 

Beyond its dial, the ref. 26331ST’s construction is perfectly in keeping with the Royal Oak Chronograph’s evolution. While the collection began as a 39mm offering, it increased to 41mm in 2012 with the ref. 26331ST’s predecessor, and it has now become the collection’s signature size. 

The Movement

Powered by the same movement as the first Royal Oak Chronograph models, the automatic cal. 2385, based on the F. Piguet cal. 1185, a legendary movement in the world of Audemars Piguet and beyond, the ref. 26331 doesn’t have the most impressive stats, with just 40 hours of power reserve at a 3Hz beat rate. However, what it lacks in eye-watering stats, the ref. 26331ST makes up for with the direct link to its heritage that its movement allows it to maintain.

Ultimate Luxury Sports Watch

As the ref. 26331ST’s use of the cal. 2385 movement suggests, the Royal Oak Chronograph embodies more than just pure utility, for it represents AP’s desire to expand upon an iconic watch design and offer their customers an exceptionally well-executed timepiece that builds upon the Gerald Genta’s vision for the Royal Oak as a sports watch that blends an avant-garde design with luxury – all of which are facets found within the ref. 26331. 

The Market

Comparatively more expensive to buy at retail given the additional complexity of their movement and construction, the majority of Royal Oak Chronograph variants offer worse premiums over their MSRPs than their time and date-only siblings. However, with that said, each of the Royal Oak Chronograph ref. 26331’s three dial variants do still offer some healthy premiums over their MSRP of $34,299. 

The blue dial variant has a market value of $56100, a premium of 63%; the black variant has a market value of almost $50k, a premium of 44%; and the silver “Panda” dial variant fetches $45k on the market, meaning that it achieves a price premium of 31%. While dial colour impacts the market value of other Royal Oak models too, its impact on the value of Royal Oak Chronograph variants is comparatively greater, a pattern that also emerges in other complicated collections.