A modern icon in Swiss high-end luxury watches turns 50. The Royal Oak line of Luxury Swiss watches is being released by Audemars Piguet for modern luxury watch collectors. The celebration is complete with a modernized version of the Royal Oak line of watches released for collectors.

“As the first expression of a high-end sports concept in watchmaking, the Royal Oak has never stopped shaking up its own codes, leaving an indelible mark on its times and giving birth to a line of more than 500 models.”-Audemars Piguet

Collectors Dashboard evaluates high-end collectibles as an alternative asset class. This means luxury watches are attracting the same capital that could have been invested into stocks or bonds. Many luxury brands like Audemars Piguet might be attracting buyers for luxury fasion pieces or they may be attracting buyers for investment — even if that investment is simply investing a store of value without a goal of an absolute profit in uncommon times.

“With its steel case, octagonal bezel, “Tapisserie” dial and integrated bracelet, the Royal Oak overturned the prevailing codes in 1972 and took its rightful place as a modern icon.”

A total of 149 new watches from the collection are represented on the website. All the watches we encountered featured a “price upon request” listing:

1. Royal Oak Openworked Grande Complication: Price Upon Request… Features: Sapphire dial, smoky counters, white gold Royal Oak hands with luminescent coating, white counter/seconds/split-seconds chronograph hands, black inner bezel with white minute-circle, slate grey movement. (Image by AudemarsPiguet.com)

2. Royal Oak Minute Repeater Supersonnerie: Price Upon Request… Limited Edition of 35… Features: “Salmon” dial with “Grande Tapisserie” pattern, white gold applied hour-markers and Royal Oak hands with luminescent coating.

3. The Royal Oak Minute Repeater Supersonnerie: Price Upon Request… Features: an elegant contrast with its titanium case and bracelet enhanced with a smoked grey “Grande Tapisserie” dial.

4. Royal Oak Tourbillon Extra-Thin: Price Upon Request… Limited Edition of 20… Features: Blue dial with “Tapisserie Evolutive” pattern, white gold applied hour-markers and Royal Oak hands with luminescent coating.

5. Royal Oak Selfwinding Flying Tourbillon: Price Upon Request… Features: Smoked grey dial with “Evolutive Tapisserie” pattern, pink gold applied hour-markers and Royal Oak hands with luminescent coating.

The continual “price upon request will perhaps exude some curiosity for some watch buyers. That was definitely the case here, so we headed over to look at “new/unworn” watch offerings at Chrono24. Any watch offerings on that site for under $10,000 or even $20,000 for a Audemars Piguet watch was generally with a skin band of sorts.