Czapek Rattrapante Ice Blue, Stainless Steel

£32,000
Price excludes 20% VAT for UK buyers. Learn more
Watchdrawer

One of just 99 pieces, this Czapek Rattrapante Ice Blue* is an intriguing piece that is entirely openworked, revealing a split-seconds complication just beneath the dial. A striking modern piece that rethinks the stainless steel sports watch genre, this highly coveted piece is an excellent find for any collector looking to add a remarkable sports watch to their collection.

INTEGRATED BRACELET

As with many watch making classics, engaging reverse gear to get back to the first integrated bracelet appears to bring one to the late, great Gerald Genta and the well-worn tale of how a last-minute freelance job for Audemars Piguet led to him penning the prototype Royal Oak in a single, overnight sketching session prior to the 1971 Basel watch show.

Indeed, as Genta's widow Evelyne told A Collected Man: 'I didn't meet Gerald until the early 1980s, a long time after he had created the Royal Oak – but he always said that he believed an integrated bracelet transformed a watch into a perfect object.'

Back in the '70s, of course, traditional Swiss watch making desperately needed a fillip as the popularity of clockwork was waning badly in the face of new-fangled quartz, and integrated bracelets seemed to add value and create new possibilities for an object that, otherwise, had changed little in decades.