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The fastest and most secure way to protect the watches you love.
We've minimized the paperwork and maximized protection, so you can stop worrying about your watches and focus on enjoying them.
In most cases, you'll get a personalized quote in seconds and your policy kicks in immediately.
Wherever you are on planet Earth, your watches are protected. Rest easy and travel safely.
If you suffer a covered loss, there's no deductible and no gimmicks. Ever.
Each of your watches is covered up to 150% of the insured value (up to the total value of the policy).
The fastest and most secure way to protect the watches you love.
We've minimized the paperwork and maximized protection, so you can stop worrying about your watches and focus on enjoying them.
In most cases, you'll get a personalized quote in seconds and your policy kicks in immediately.
Wherever you are on planet Earth, your watches are protected. Rest easy and travel safely.
If you suffer a covered loss, there's no deductible and no gimmicks. Ever.
Each of your watches is covered up to 150% of the insured value (up to the total value of the policy).
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The peak Royal Oak hits the half-century mark with a whole new reference. It's a mild but meaningful upgrade to a bona fide icon.
This is going to be a big year for Audemars Piguet. It is, of course, 2022, or exactly 50 years since the Royal Oak was presented to the world as the very first true luxury steel sports watch. The Audemars Piguet heritage department recently released some truly remarkable details about this watch's origin story – Jack has the details on HODINKEE today, and I would highly recommend you read his story before continuing on. I'll give you a minute.
Okay, now that you know the early history of the Royal Oak, let's get into what this is here. Today, you're looking at a Royal Oak "Jumbo," with a brand-new reference for the first time in 22 years. Gone is the 15202, and here is the 16202.
AP is rolling out four new references of the 16202. They are the ref. 16202ST.OO.1240ST.01, in steel, on a steel bracelet, with a special anniversary blue dial; the ref. 16202OR.OO.1240OR.01, in pink gold on a pink gold bracelet, with a "smoked grey" dial; the ref. 16202BA.OO.1240BA.01, in yellow gold on a yellow gold bracelet, with a smoked gold dial; and the ref. 16202PT.OO.1240PT.01 in platinum on a platinum bracelet, with a smoked green dial.
Now let's not get too excited – a new reference doesn't always mean dramatic changes, but in this case, that's a wonderful thing. The slim, 39mm, self-winding, second-hand-less Royal Oak is an icon, and you don't mess with icons. You keep them exactly as they are, with the goal of making them just that much better. Which is exactly what AP has done with the 16202.
Ref. 16202ST.OO.1240ST.01, steel on steel, with the anniversary Petite Tapisserie dial, Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50 color.
In short, the 16202 is the 15202 with a new dial design and a new caliber. Doesn't sound like much and, to most, it isn't. But to someone who appreciates what made the original 5402 so special, it's a significant change. Because the caliber inside the Royal Oak (AP Caliber 2121 - then based on the JLC 920) is really what allowed the Royal Oak to become the Royal Oak. It was the thinnest self-winding caliber on earth then at just 3.05mm thick, which allowed the Reference 5402 to be just 7.01mm thick. The reference 15202 that we know and love used effectively the same caliber, but because of the sapphire caseback, it was 8.1mm thick – still making it one of the finest, thinnest, and most wearable sports watches on earth.
So when I received the press release for the new 16202 (by "received" I actually mean "begged for" – because yes, there are still certain watches I want to write about and a Jumbo Royal Oak will always be one of them) and saw the watch had a new movement, I thought to myself, "Oh boy, what's a Jumbo without the 2121 in it?" I skipped straight to the external case dimensions, praying that the new 16202 Royal Oak would not be a minuscule millimeter thicker than the 15202's 8.1mm. And guess what, it's not! It's exactly the same thickness. And this leads me to the big news here.
16202BA.OO.1240BA.01, in yellow gold on a yellow gold bracelet, with a smoked gold dial.
The case dimensions, externally, are exactly the same in this new 16202 versus the 15202, but internal dimensions have changed dramatically. And that's because AP has gone ahead and built an entirely new caliber – 7121 – which is larger (29.6mm vs. 28.4mm), more complicated (268 components vs. 247), more accurate thanks to a higher frequency (28,800 vph vs. 19,800), and perhaps most meaningfully, longer-lasting, with a power reserve of 55 hours versus the 15202's 40 hours of minimum guaranteed reserve. The new caliber 7121 also happens to be thicker than the 2121 (3.2mm vs 3.05mm) – a fact that Ben from 2011 reminded me of.
The new caliber 7121, 3.2mm x 29.6mm, running at 28,800 vph with a 55-hour power reserve.
But the external dimensions of the 16202 remain exactly the same. And that is a feat worth celebrating by Audemars Piguet.
The outgoing caliber 2121, 28.4mm x 3.05mm, running at 19,800 vph with 40-hour power reserve.
The 7121 took five years to develop and now uses a contemporary oscillating weight on ball bearings that uses two in-house reversers. The balance wheel gets inertia blocks for added shock-proofness, and what is absolutely the biggest news as a user of the Royal Oak Jumbo – there is now a quick-set date mechanism! Apparently instituting such a thing in a self-winding caliber this thin required a patent – but to me, as someone who wears a Royal Oak Jumbo often – this is a BFD. Gone are the days of sore thumbs from twisting that little octagonal crown back and forth between 9pm and 12am for minutes at a time every time you want to set the date. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not, and it may not sound like a material change, but trust me, it is.
The ref. 16202PT.OO.1240PT.01, platinum with smoked green dial. Best Iconic Timepiece, GPHG 2021. The smoked effect comes from adding drops of green coloring to the dial's protective varnish.
The 7121 is expertly finished with Côtes de Genève, snailing, circular graining, and lovely polished angles that make it, well, exactly what you'd expect from a brand new in-house AP caliber. According to Lucas Raggi, R&D Director for AP, the introduction of this caliber included all departments, and it will be the foundation of several new AP in-house calibers to come. THAT is exciting.
AP also notes that all 16202 watches made this year will have a special 50th-anniversary rotor on them, which is a neat touch to make the 2022 pieces feel special from those to come for the next decade or so, until we get the next Jumbo reference.
Smoked yellow gold dial, ref. 16202BA.OO.1240BA.01
Placing the famous bezel bolts, with decorative screw slots
Okay, so we have a brand-new caliber and dimensions that are exactly the same – what else is new? Well, the dial. In 2010, on that fateful visit to AP, I remember asking Octavio Garcia what we could expect for the 40th anniversary and if we might see the "AP" drop back down to the 6 o'clock position. Garcia, ever the professional, said "anything is possible" and gave a sly smile. The big change for the 40th anniversary was just that – a dial configuration that was in line with what geeks like us wanted because it paid tribute to the 5402 Royal Oak. Here, the dial doesn't get an architectural update like it did ten years ago, but it does have a new design.
The ref. ref. 16202OR.OO.1240OR.01 in pink gold, with "smoked grey" dial.
We still have the lovely petite tapisserie pattern first seen on Royal Oak dials made in 1972 by Stern Frères, and we still have "bagnoire" (bathtub)-shaped hour markers in matching materials, with "Audemars Piguet Automatic" back at 12 o'clock, as always. "Swiss Made" is down at the bottom of the dial, with the minute track being printed directly onto the dial. One particularly striking dial is the smoked grey, which the release says "is achieved through galvanic bath, the duration and temperature of which is crucial to reach homogeneous colouring across the different pieces. The smoked effect is then obtained by meticulously spraying coloured varnish onto the dial's external zone, while rotating, to reach a seamless gradation." Real talk, the way Jumbo dials are made is super special. Here's another decade-old flashback of me telling the five people who read HODINKEE back then all about it.
All the new dials are special, but AP says the blue dial for the steel reference 16202 is pretty much a copy-paste of the labor-intensive original dial from the 5402 in 1972: "The dial's Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50 colour was originally developed by Geneva-based dial maker Stern Frères. The blue hue was obtained by immersing each dial in a galvanic bath. While the formulation of the mixture is important, the duration and temperature are both crucial. If the artisan removes the dial too early, it comes out purple, if removed too late it turns black. A thin layer of varnish mixed with a few drops of black colour (n° 50) was then applied onto the dial to protect it. The term 'nuage' refers to the cloud effect the drop of black creates when it enters the protective liquid varnish." Today, a PVD coating process duplicates exactly the original dial but with much better consistency from one watch to the next.
So, there you have it. The first model of the brand-new Reference 16202 Royal Oak Jumbo. We know it won't be the last, but from a collector's perspective, this is a wonderful step forward in the model's history without altering what the watch is, fundamentally. And that's exactly what this watch deserves. Think of it as the Rolex school of watch innovation. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Prices at launch: Ref. 16202ST.OO.1240ST.01- $33,200. Ref. 16202BA.OO.1240BA.01 - $70,500. Ref. 16202OR.OO.1240OR.01 - $70,500 16202. Ref. PT.OO.1240PT.01 - Price on request, available through AP Houses only. Water resistance for all cases, 50 meters.
HODINKEE offers a selection of Royal Oaks as part of our pre-owned assortment – discover our current selection here. For more information on the new pieces, visit Audemars Piguet.
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