Audemars Piguet Millenary Review
Where asymmetrical art meets multi-dimensional mechanical engineering.
Audemars Piguet Millenary Review
One of the most captivating features on the case back of the Audemars Piguet Millenary 4101 Automatic watch is the stunning bidirectional 22kt yellow gold rotor and of course, with the AP logo smack in the middle of the rotor with the family crests on both sides it's sure to become a piece of watchmaking history. The rotor spins with the help of lubrication-free ceramic ball bearings.
The whole Audemars Piguet Caliber 4101 movement is immaculately decorated with the Cotes de Geneva radial brushed pattern finish and is stacked with layers of parts which create a multi-dimensional circus of shadows and highlights causing the movement to look like it's literally jumping out of the case back.
This phenomenon is something not easy to describe; even with several photos let alone with mere words. That's only talking about the back of this beautiful luxury skeleton watch.
The dial of the absolutely gorgeous AP Millenary 4101 is even more mesmerizing than the case back. The dial is right-aligned, it has polished and skeletonized rose gold hands and uses Roman numerals in an asymmetrical warped perspective.
Possibly design inspired by "The Persistence of Memory", the famous Salvador Dali painting with the melting clocks and warped watches. Furthermore, they completely redesigned these new models to highlight the new 34-jewel Audemars Piguet Caliber 4010 movement, a true work of mechanical art which is comprised of 284 parts and has a power reserve of about 60 hours.
What's new in the Audemars Piguet Millenary 4101?
While Audemars Piguet is known for their bold design and top-notch avant-garde watches, the Audemars Piguet Millenary collection takes their fearlessness in design to unseen heights. There are two different models featured in this post. These would be model # 15350st.oo.d002cr.01 with a stainless steel case and a black alligator leather strap and the model# 15350or.oo.d093cr.01 which has an 18kt rose gold case with a brown leather strap.
One of the things distinguishing the rose gold Millenary from the stainless steel Millenary is the Audemars Piguet logo on the dial. On this watch, it appears in Black on a silver sunray dial while the steel version has a dark gray sunray dial with a white logo. You'll also notice a rose gold stud to hold down the exposed components on the left side of the watches rose gold case.
The 18kt case has a brushed finish with a polished bezel ring with matching lugs. The list price of the rose gold version is significantly higher than the stainless steel version at $40,300. Comparatively, the list price of the stainless steel version is over $15,000 lower than the rose gold version at $24,500.
The previous models in the Audemars Piguet Millenary collection had a very different design. They all still shared the oval shaped case but consistent with the trend line, the case size got larger from a 45mm x 40mm oval featured on the Millenary Pianoforte limited edition. The new case size is now 47mm x 43mm.
On the front end of this watch, you can see practically see the whole movement including the movement plates and bridges which make use of some beautiful finishing processes including circular graining and Cotes de Geneve striping. This is definitely a conversation starter since this watch is unlike anything most people have ever seen.
