Inspired by a number of historic jump hour watches from Audemars Piguet’s catalogue from the 1920s, this is an example of the reference 25723* in rose gold. At its heart lies the manually wound calibre 2865, devised by Renaud et Papi to be small enough to fit inside a women’s watch case. It became the mainstay of Audemars Piguet’s minute repeater references in the 1990s. The slider on the left flank of case releases the sonnerie which announces the hour, quarter and minutes through twin hammers striking a gong.
Minute repeater calibres
Starting in the late 1980s, the spirit that had seen brands such as Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin jointly respond to the threat posed by quartz technology to traditional mechanical timekeeping by developing ultra-slim perpetual calendar complication references reared its head again. This time it manifested itself in a desire to bring back another style of watchmaking that had been lost to the pages of history.
Audemars Piguet, working in concert with movement specialist Renaud et Papi, looked to the small, minute repeater calibres the brand had created in the pre-WWII era. One of these was a minute repeater calibre just 15.8mm across, first seen in 1921. This was also around the time when the brand started experimenting with jump hour-style displays and the combination of the sonnerie complication and digital time-telling became closely associated with Audemars Piguet of this era. This is best exemplified in watches such as those with case numbers 27’830 and 33’550. These were produced through the 1920s.
These examples served as a source of inspiration for the brand that was looking to reassert itself. At the time, in the absence of accurate movement dimensions for the historic minute repeater calibres, Giulio Papi set himself the goal of designing a calibre small enough to fit inside a women’s watch.
What resulted was the 9 ¾ ligne calibre 2865 that became the basis of Audemars Piguet’s modern minute repeater references. It was first fitted to a historically accurate, rectangular-cased minute repeater reference 25723. This was the first of a family of seven references the brand produced with similar cases in a variety of precious metals between 1992 and 1997. Most were produced in small series, with a total tally of 257 examples, including the unique reference 25765PT, with an emerald-set case.
It is worth noting that the calibre would go on to have another life in the form of the 209 examples of the John Shaeffer line of minute repeater references. You can learn about this family of references here.
