Audemars Piguet Platinum Grand Sonnerie Skeleton Watch with Diamonds, Possibly Unique

Among the highest orders of traditional watchmaking, the grande sonnerie remains a complication few maisons have ever attempted and fewer still have truly mastered. For much of the late 20th century, Audemars Piguet stood almost alone in carrying the torch, quietly producing wristwatches capable not only of repeating the time on demand, but of automatically striking it in passing. These were not simply complicated watches; they were mechanical instruments.

This platinum example sits squarely within that rarefied lineage.

At first glance, it reads like jewellery a full diamond-set bezel, factory and period correct, catching the light with every movement of the wrist. Yet the brilliance is merely a frame. The real spectacle lies within: a fully skeletonized dial that dissolves the boundary between face and movement, revealing the architecture of the legendary caliber 2868 in full relief.

Bridges in warm rose gilt sweep across the dial like vaulted trusses, hand-engraved and meticulously bevelled. Racks, snails, wheels and levers remain perpetually in tension, a kinetic landscape typically hidden from view. Here, everything is exposed not for effect, but because every surface is finished to the level required to withstand it. Black feuille hands and a restrained chapter ring provide just enough structure to orient the eye, while the sonnerie register anchors the composition at six.

The manually wound caliber 2868 is one of the most sophisticated chiming wristwatch movements of its era the same base architecture shared with references such as the 25750BA and 25847BA and among the very few true grande sonnerie calibers ever made for the wrist. In grand sonnerie mode, the watch automatically strikes the hours and quarters as they pass. In petite sonnerie, it sounds only the quarters. At any moment, a slide near two oclock transforms it into a minute repeater on demand. A simple gesture engages an orchestra of racks and hammers, the time rendered not visually, but acoustically.

The case, hewn from platinum and hallmarked accordingly, carries the reassuring density that only the metal provides. Broad, sculpted lugs and alternating brushed and polished surfaces lend a quiet elegance, while the diamonds add a distinctly Audemars Piguet flourish technical severity softened by high jewellery savoir-faire. It is a pairing that feels unmistakably of the period, when the manufacture often executed complicated pieces in highly bespoke, low-production formats.

Indeed, production of 2868-powered sonnerie wristwatches was extraordinarily limited, measured in only small handfuls across metals and configurations. A platinum, skeletonized, diamond-set example such as this is seldom encountered and may well represent a unique commission.

On the wrist, the experience is singular: the heft of platinum, the depth of the openworked movement, and then the clear, resonant chime marking the passage of time like a pocket watch from another century. It is less an accessory than an object of horological theatre a reminder that, at its most ambitious, watchmaking becomes something closer to music.

For the collector drawn to the outer edge of what is mechanically possible, this stands as one of the purest modern expressions of Audemars Piguets chiming mastery: rare, technically formidable, and unapologetically extravagant in craft.