Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph Ceramic 26238CE 2024

The Royal Oak Offshore has always been the Royal Oak with its voice raised. This is the 2024 chronograph, 42mm, executed entirely in black ceramic — case, bezel and bracelet — with the brushed steel of the case flanks and bezel surround left to catch the light against it.

Ceramic is the material that suits this watch. The Offshore was designed to be worn hard, and a case that will not scratch the way steel scratches is the honest answer to that brief. It is also considerably more difficult to make: every surface has to be ground and polished rather than machined, and the alternation of brushed and polished zones that defines a Royal Oak has to survive that process intact.

The dial is Méga Tapisserie in black, carrying a tri-compax chronograph layout, a date at 4:30 and a tachymeter scale on the inner bezel ring. Applied markers and hands are filled with a warm cream luminous compound. The sapphire caseback shows the gold rotor.

Driving it is calibre 4404, Audemars Piguet's in-house integrated flyback chronograph — integrated meaning the chronograph is built into the movement's architecture rather than added as a module on top, which is both harder to do and the reason the pushers feel the way they do. Seventy hours of power reserve, water-resistant to 100 metres.

Complete with box and papers, unworn. Every watch we sell is authenticated by an independent watchmaker before it changes hands — never by us. Available to view by appointment at our Collins Street boutique in Melbourne, and we ship insured Australia-wide. If you have one to sell, we buy Audemars Piguet outright.