Incoming —- Pride of Germany 26415CE + AP House Munich visit

[Raemondo]

The new Pride of Germany 26415CE is my personal favorite Offshore to date — a 300 piece limited edition with ceramic bezel, 44mm ceramic case, slate grey dial, 2 white-rimmed sub-dials, ceramic push pieces, and titanium push piece guards. I have been wanting a full ceramic piece for some time now but couldn’t pull the trigger on the 26405CE as I can’t read the time very well on that piece.

What makes this piece even more special are the rose gold accents on the hour markers, hands, plots (my favorite touch), and crown guard. The second hand, 30 marker of the chronograph sub-dial, and AP logo, are also nicely finished in rose gold. I have been interested in trying out rose gold watches but wanted to ease into it so this is a nice compromise. I think the balance of the black ceramic with the touch of rose gold accents works really well to give the piece a cohesive, elegant balance.

It is after all, still a Royal Oak Offshore chronograph, so it houses the self-winding Calibre 3126/3840 with a 50 hour power reserve. The 22-carat white gold oscillating weight rotor is also coated in dark grey, but instead of the AP logo this watch features an engraving of the Brandenburg Gate. Built in Berlin in 1791, this Gate has been used for various historical events, and when the Berlin Wall fell on Nov 9th 1989, the Brandenburg Gate came to symbolize peace and freedom, then ultimately it came to signify the unification of Germany. AP wanted to commemorate the 30-year anniversary of the Fall of the Wall, hence the Pride of Germany.

This watch was supposed to only be released in Nov to coincide with the anniversary celebrations but AP decided to do a small pre-release. I happened to be in Munich visiting AP House 1 day after they received the 1st showroom piece and 1 day after they released it on their website. As noted in another thread (link below), this release has been a fairly quiet one, with AP just sharing more pictures recently in the past week via Instagram. As you can expect, this watch is only available in Germany. Demand has been strong since the release, and there seems to be a wait list building.

AP House is helmed by Patrice, Martin, Claudia and a few others I don’t know, and I worked mainly with Martin as Patrice was on vacation. When I was there, both Martin and Claudia were extremely hospitable, having hosted many international clients who come through Munich. I didn’t know about this watch and only learned about it when I was there. I was in Munich for a layover, and while Martin couldn’t sell me the showroom piece, he jumped through massive hoops to ship it to the Paris Rue Royale boutique as I was going to be there 1 week later. I cannot describe my excitement when I picked up the watch in Paris from Sorina, the boutique manager, who was very hospitable as well. This might have been the first delivery of this watch, or at least within the first few, but definitely the first documented! Overall, my entire AP experience was A++.

While I was at AP House Munich, I also got to see the impressive life-sized replica of the 3126 caliber, and try on a showroom 15500 black. If they had a 15500 in stock, I would have picked it up as well, but as we all know the stainless steel pieces are in high demand these days.

Pictures below, enjoy!  

P.S. also included a video link to the wristroll —- https://youtu.be/IXVPXx0PNfs

Other PoG thread —- https://www.rolexforums.com/showthread.php?t=652901






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