Royal Oak Review & Buying Guide

Gerald Genta’s 1972 design didn’t just launch a watch — it invented the luxury steel sports watch as a category. Fifty years on, the Royal Oak is one of the hardest watches in the world to buy at retail. Here’s what the specialist press says about the two references that matter, and what you’ll really pay.

Case

37–41 mm

Designer

Gerald Genta

Icon since

1972

Retail from

~$25,000

When Audemars Piguet released the Royal Oak in 1972 it was radical: stainless steel, but priced like gold. As LuxuryBazaar recounts, that first steel model cost roughly four times a Rolex Submariner — a ratio that still roughly holds today (about $40,000 for a current Jumbo versus around $10,000 for a Submariner). The gamble worked. The Royal Oak is widely credited with carrying AP through the quartz crisis and founding the entire integrated-bracelet genre; WatchGuys simply calls it the benchmark luxury sports watch.

AP’s catalogue runs to dozens of references, but two are the cornerstones: the 41mm Selfwinding (today’s 15510ST) and the thinner, collector-revered Extra-Thin “Jumbo” (now the 16202). Comparing the modern Selfwinding to the Jumbo, Monochrome describes it as “cleaner, more modern, sharper” and the sportier of the pair. The 2022 50th-anniversary update refreshed both lines — the Jumbo from 15202 to 16202 and the Selfwinding from 15500 to 15510 — each with new calibres and refined cases, per WatchGuys.

Fratello, going hands-on with the 41mm Selfwinding, flagged the real upgrade: AP fitted the in-house calibre 4302 (borrowed from the Code 11.59 line), lifting the power reserve from 60 to 70 hours and the beat rate from 21,600 to 28,800 vph. The dial was tidied too — the “Automatic” text removed and the date window repositioned. One honest caveat from that review: with AP’s distinctive lug design, the 41mm case wears bigger than the spec suggests.

This is where reality bites. Per WatchCharts, the steel Selfwinding 15510ST carries a market value around $46,000 — roughly 45% above its $31,900 US retail, against an AP-wide average of about 2% over retail — and it has held value far better than most of the brand’s catalogue. WatchGuys pegs current secondary ranges at roughly $38,000–$50,000 for the steel Selfwinding, $70,000–$85,000 for a steel Jumbo, and $45,000–$58,000 for the steel Chronograph. Retail is largely theoretical; the waitlist is the real barrier.

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This review synthesizes hands-on coverage from the publications below. Rather than reproduce their work, we link out — read them in full for the original photography and detail.