Audemars Piguet's archivists have discovered the real origin story of the Royal Oak

One of the unintended consequences of the vast quantity of words written about Swiss watches in recent years is that some of the origin stories behind those watches have become - how do we put this? - a little fuzzy The legend has been repeated 1,000 times and more, and we can be pretty confident that yes, on release in 1972 the Royal Oak became the first luxury steel sports watch, and that it was conceived by the 20th century's great watch designer Gérald Genta In the early 1970s, Audemars Piguet was making around 5,000 watches a year.

Making 4,500 steel Royal Oaks if it couldn't sell them would have been corporate harakiri: you don't make watches you're not selling Audemars Piguet has discovered documentation that shows that during the Royal Oak's early years, the company grew, despite the fact it was born into the Quartz Crisis - that devastating period during which an estimated 1,000 Swiss watch companies went under and two thirds of the workforce was laid off "We have found the order form for the first production of cases, ordered by Audemars Piguet from the case manufacturer Favre-Perret.

It's dated 1971, so we can confirm the year."Then, oral sources, including from Mr Genta, confirm that the first Royal Oak request came from the Italian market and that it ordered 400 pieces," he continues Audemars Piguet is keeping a lid on its plans for now, but we can bet that for its lodestar watch's half-century it will pull out all the stops, not just with new models, but with a fresh account of the Royal Oak's authorised story - the most accurate account of the watch ever compiled. . Source