Following the whirlwind partnership between AP and Swatch last weekend let\u2019s focus on what truly defines the brand\u2019s DNA. On 12 May 2026, Christie’s Geneva sold a platinum cushion-shaped single-button chronograph by Audemars Piguet \u2014 one of the first three wrist chronographs the manufacture ever produced \u2014 for CHF 2,134,000, more than five times its low pre-sale estimate of CHF 200,000. The result sets a new auction record for an Audemars Piguet chronograph wristwatch and places this piece among the most significant vintage AP transactions ever recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1930, Audemars Piguet commissioned six chronograph wristwatch movements using blanks supplied by Le Coultre & Cie. The first three were cased in Art Deco cushion-shaped platinum or gold cases designated ‘Coussin Tortue’ in the brand’s own archives. The first example, in 18k white gold, was sold in 1930. The present watch is the second platinum-cased example and the last of the three to be documented \u2014 delivered in 1937 to retailer Veuve Louis Goering in La Chaux-de-Fonds and sold in 1943. Although three ‘Coussin Tortue’ chronographs were made, only two are confirmed to have survived, and this is the only one ever to have appeared at public auction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The movement powering this watch is the calibre 11GCCV, described in AP’s archives as one of the smallest chronograph movements the manufacture ever commercialised. In 1937 \u2014 a record year for AP chronograph output \u2014 20 wrist chronographs were delivered: 19 fitted with Valjoux 13-ligne calibres, and just one, this example, with the 11GCCV. At the time, the entire Audemars Piguet manufacture employed 14 people and produced roughly 250 watches per year. The movement was regulated by Robert Piguet of Le Brassus, who worked at the manufacture for 55 years, from 1914 to 1969.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The chronograph operates via a crown-integrated monopusher (single-button) mechanism: one push starts the elapsed-time function, a second stops it, and a third returns the seconds hand to zero. This crown-integrated architecture represents the first generation of AP’s chronograph wristwatches. The cushion-shaped platinum case was made by Wenger, one of Geneva’s most respected casemakers of the period, and houses a two-tone grey and white dial \u2014 recorded in AP’s archives as model 183b and made of gold \u2014 that gives the piece a visual clarity that reads as almost contemporary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The movement’s balance bridge is engraved with the three-letter code ‘BXP’, an importer identification required under US customs regulations of the era. This confirms the watch was intended for the American market, a detail consistent with its subsequent ownership history. The retail price recorded in AP’s archives at the time of original sale was 280 Swiss Francs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The watch is associated with Rabbi Max Schenk, former President of the New York Board of Rabbis. Born in Berne in 1905, Schenk emigrated to the United States, received his rabbinical degree in 1929, and maintained a career spanning more than 45 years. Upon his death in 1974, the watch passed to his son-in-law, Dr. Herbert Hechtman \u2014 a Princeton and Harvard Medical School graduate who served as a surgical oncologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and as a full professor at Harvard Medical School. In 2024, the watch passed to the next generation, preserving an unbroken chain of family ownership of more than 80 years. Prior to the sale, the timepiece was returned to the Audemars Piguet manufacture for a complete restoration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From 1930 to the early 1980s, Audemars Piguet’s cumulative production of chronograph wristwatches reached only 307 examples \u2014 a figure that underscores the structural scarcity of any early AP chronograph. The remaining three 11GCCV movements from the original batch of six were cased in round 31mm ‘Eggly’ cases (pre-model 978) and sold between 1946 and 1949. None of those round-cased examples has appeared at auction with the same documented provenance or archival depth as the ‘Coussin Tortue’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For reference, a Valjoux-powered AP ref. 5503 triple calendar chronograph \u2014 itself made in only five examples \u2014 carried a Christie’s estimate of CHF 80,000\u2013140,000 in a recent season. A ref. 5504 triple calendar in yellow gold sold at Phillips for approximately $131,000. The AP ‘Grosse Pi\u00e8ce’ pocket watch, the most complicated AP of its era, set an absolute record at $7,736,000 at Sotheby’s New York, but that is a pocket watch with a tourbillon and celestial complication. Among wristwatch chronographs specifically, the CHF 2,134,000 result for the ‘Coussin Tortue’ represents a new ceiling and reflects a broader market reappraisal of pre-1970 AP complications: a 1943 world-time AP sold for $243,581 at Monaco Legend Group, and a 1931 rectangular calendar AP fetched $403,431 at the same sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The result is consistent with a pattern visible across recent seasons: early AP complicated wristwatches, long undervalued relative to comparable Patek Philippe references, are attracting serious collector attention. The ‘Coussin Tortue’ result goes further than any comparable data point because the watch combines first-series status, archival documentation, a named movement regulator, confirmed US provenance, and a single-family ownership history \u2014 a convergence of factors that rarely, if ever, aligns in a single lot. For collectors tracking this segment, the CHF 2,134,000 hammer price is now the reference against which future early AP chronograph sales will be measured.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A record result for one of AP’s rarest surviving watches Following the whirlwind partnership between AP and Swatch last weekend let\u2019s focus on what truly defines the brand\u2019s DNA. On 12 May 2026, Christie’s Geneva sold a platinum cushion-shaped single-button chronograph by Audemars Piguet \u2014 one of the first three wrist chronographs the manufacture ever produced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-categorise"],"yoast_head":"\n