|
Audemars Piguet - Cases Our
next stop was the case manufacturing department. Audemars Piguet make about
16,000 watches a year and plan to increase that amount to about 20,000 in the
next three years. Apart from their case making facilities in Le Brassus, they
also own 66 % of the case
makers Centror in Geneva who supply about 20 % demand and also outsource certain work, i.e. the
Offshore cases, to Favre & Perret in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
 
Prestigious Classic: Edward Piguet, Jules Audemars, Extra Plat and Clous de
Paris  
 
Essential Contemporary: Millenary and Canape  
Elegant Ladies: Promesse, Charleston and Carnegie  
2002 On to the case manufacturing department. Until now, the premises simply looked like another set of offices. Here however, there were plenty of heavy duty industrial manufacturing machines, such as milling machines, lathes and other impressive looking pieces. I must confess I looked around for, but did not spot, the famous rose engine, with its wooden chassis. Seeing the beautiful cases above, it's hard to believe that all of them started their life in a sodden routing machine.
One of the company's specialties is jewelry watches. Mr. Wehrli described the special technique they use for setting the stones which is hardly used anymore by other companies and involves matching each gemstone to one another. Audemars Piguet process roughly 350,000 precious stones per year totaling 7,000 carats and require about 700 kg of gold. We
were then shown some top quality diamonds and other precious stones, which were
an obvious source of pride for Mr Wehrli and the person who was responsible for
them.
He explained that Audemars used only top quality Wesselton diamonds and
that it could take years before they would find the ideal set for a watch. I assume that Audemars makes these jewelry watches to order only, as they aren't exactly your everyday watch, and I imagine that they don't exactly fly out of the shops. I suspect that they are made mainly for the Middle Eastern and Asian markets, where tastes differ. While they're not my cup of tea (okay, they're also out of my price range), they are truly beautiful masterpieces. In my view, it is unfortunate that some watch enthusiasts wrongly associate opulence with ugliness. How could an otherwise beautiful watch suddenly become ugly, just because it is adorned with precious stones ? Wake up with style: a diamond and ruby studded travel alarm
In the quality control room, each case is checked, engraved with a serial number
and entered into the archives. Their life as an Audemars Piguet has just begun ! The case and bezel of a Royal Oak Grande Complication with its freshly engraved serial number
Jules Audemars cases waiting to be filled with life
An one-off black PVD coated Royal Oak Grande Complication spotted during it's final accuracy test
| ||||
