Incoming Grail - AP ROO 44mm 26400IO

[Mercury2wo]

Incoming Alert!

Thrilled to finally get my grail watch - the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore 44 mm - model 26400IO in titanium and ceramic bezel.

I have been eyeing this piece for many years but never had the courage to pull the trigger - because of how expensive it was.

I had tried the Titanium 44mm ROO at an AD in 2017 in Zurich and instantly fell in love with it. He even offered me a discount and the price worked out to $27,250 then. But this was roo much money on one watch and I passed.

Every year / couple of years I would end up getting a watch that was “affordable” and just walk past the AP boutique eyeing the pieces there.

And then the watch box also filled up with 12 watches and no more space for a new one and I forgot about the itch.

Until recently! And when I did decide to get one - the hunt for the piece was another adventure. I live in Dubai.

Neither of the 2 AP boutiques in the city had even a “single” Royal Oak watch on display or available.
Meaning literally the boutique only had 2-3 watches available - Millenary and 11.59 series.

They simply said they aren’t getting that many watches as before and even the ones they get are all reserved.

I reached out to dealers I had worked with in the past and either they quoted huge premiums over already high retail prices or simply refused to be able to get one for me.
I considered pre owned pieces from renowned used watch dealers - but even they were out of stock.

After many weeks - suddenly this weekend I got 3 calls.
The AP Boutique from Abu Dhabi called, WatchBox had a pre-owned piece and a trusted dealer said he managed to get one.

I finally got it today!

AP have started issuing a warranty smartcard with QR code to activate the watch and register online to increase warranty to 5 years (no more old style warranty booklet with watch details printed inside) - which I immediately did.

The watch looks great on the wrist and I will be wearing only this one for a month at least at a stretch.

The only problem? Need a bigger watch box! :-)