John Mayer and Ben Clymer Discuss AP's New References

a AP and hinki SE one take one good whenever you're ready hey guys Ben here in New York City for watch Friends there's nothing more exciting than an anniversary year and this year is actually the 150th anniversary for otomar Paget so we're here in New York City at the AP house to see some new stuff and along with me we have my old friend John Mayor thanks Ben yes we're going to be taking a tour not just of the AP house and some historical pieces but also a brand new release from AP as shown To Us by head of research and development Luca Raji it's a very special new piece the first of many celebrating the 150th anniversary of AP this year this is one of my favorite places in New York it's like a mini AP Museum yeah uh this is a favorite 1921 Ultra Ultra tiny minute repeater it's crazy what do you think the biggest Min rep pater is that's a really John Mayor question that's a really good question a pocket watch with a whole bunch of different complications yeah probably some like giant P caliber 89 so this is a good one this is 1983 Perpetual you know the the early AP perpetuals like the 1950s stuff 5516 one of my favorite watches I'll never have one they made nine of them you know in the ' 50s how did you know that I don't know thank you so we gather some exciting time pieces for you Luca will be joining you shortly so enjoy guys thank you amazing well you know which one I'm looking at that's your watch I I own one yes not in this condition I would say you have popularized that watch well I think the watch popularized itself it's beautiful yeah the really monochrome steel case steel dial God every time I see a royal o that I don't own I'm just like I could own another Royal o I know sincerely well every time I see when I go if I bought that then that would be the daily driver forever but this seems more like your style that seems like if you or I could take our pick I'd pull this one and you'd pull that one well look this I think that's right I think that's fair I think you know this era of AP has always been so interesting to me because it was like they were making at most 20 to 30 watches per year when these things came out right per year like not you know it's just amazing how rare these calendar washes are this is a simple calendar so this is not a Perpetual but obviously triple calendar with moon phase I mean this is 1940s 1950s this is this is serious stuff when really it was only if I can say AP and pek making making anything like this you know one thing that has shocked me is that the smaller the watch the more desirable it is it seems that way at least on Tik Tok yes you know I mean I've seen people who I consider pretty in the know and pretty hip and they're wearing a a mini o that's even smaller than the modern mini o you know 23 mm Min and it works oh what is it about it it suggests a certain Behavior it does I want to know what the man who wears this is thinking you know what I mean that's that's an elevated uh discourse with that guy you know yeah this would be your that would be the one this would be your watch hello guys Luka pleasure to see here good to see you again good to see you you know Luka Raj great to see you head of research and development at otom RPG of course who is going to be showing us something very special well we know good things are about to happen when we see the black satin over some pieces on a tray love it correct guys I wrote you our latest development in the field of the Perpetual calendars okay but before I do the review John I think you want to show us something yes um for those who don't know this is called a stylus it comes included with every perpetual calendar that you buy including AP Perpetual calendars up until today that is correct this tool I don't need it anymore so let's discover the watches as you can see you don't have those correctors on the side of the watch anymore it is a QP Royal Oak with no correctors anywhere on the case all the corrections set from the crown it brings to mind how many times I've left the house wanting to have my QP set correctly not being able to find the stylus and having to leave and just accepting that every function on the watch except for the time itself was going to be incorrect and I have to tell you I have used in my life many things that shouldn't be a stylist as a stylus I went so far one time as to whittle a Q-tip stick to be able to do it I've seen people do it with the little um the dental floss picks the other side of that can I can I tell you my favorite tell me yours golf tea a golf tea does it inred it's it's a sharp enough sure a good golf tea so we have three watches on the table we have a steel watch and then we have it's a sand gold sand gold yeah tone on tone and then finally we have 1159 every calendar watch that AP has made up until today has correctors on it right even John your watch which is the John Mayor perpetual calendar yes has has CRA what we wanted to do is a watch papet calendar that you can wear every day and that you can set easily so we begin to think could we build like a gear boo in order to allow you to do all those Corrections you can set the date the months you can set also the day of the week and you can set the moon face all from the crown all from the crown and it took us five years from scratch to develop this watch Finding the stylus is one thing yes finding the correct sequence to do the correction is another one let's play a game let's play a game Ben yeah do you know from memory each function of every corrector going from the bottom right no way I mean I I know one I can tell you that and that's the moon phase that's always at the bottom bottom left yeah bottom left that's right what'll happen is it's sort of laid out in a way that Cascades logically but if you get to the third corrector and for some reason you didn't remember which one that did you will go forward a month correct and now because it's a QP you're not you got to go all the way around four years to get there and that is I think pretty much every time it will bite you there will be a way you'll go I just pushed it into next month y if you do that let's say false correction with the crown you will be able to set it again very fast by the crown you can do six functions one is winding you move to date correction in One Direction and months in the other direction then you pull it again you can set the error and the magic trick is when you go back to second position in fact you activate the second prime position that will allow you to correct the day of the week in One Direction and the moon phase in the other direction so time out real quick think about this there is a forward motion to going backwards in the sequence of continuing to set the watch so you actually don't get lost and find out that you've moved to the wrong month this is based on theonomics and we have started actually with a universal rd4 right where we have thought about how could you use a complicated watch without a user mode right and this is a different interpretation on how to correct the perpetual calendar in an easy way it's funny when when the 16 202 came out I remember thinking that it was such an innovation to not have to do the the old school way of setting a 1550 202 my favorite watch for sure and so that's almost a precursor to this in many ways yeah that's correct because it shares the same movement and when we develop the 7121 which is the base for the 16 202 we thought immediately how are we going to plug a new QP on this base and this is how we started the project 5 years ago now when you redesign a caliber like that do you begin with the 5134 and modify it or do you start with a clean slate so we start from scratch but we start with a dial we place the informations the hands and then we draw the mechanics around and on this new QP we have changed the way we display the informations usually you will put it let's say the US way of doing it you have Monday February 3rd and we have changed it to make it like the European way we say Monday 3rd of February but while doing this we had the month indication which was coal to the leure indicator meaning two hands and only one hand for the day of the week so you had you know you have a symmetry problem this is why we decided to include a day and night indicator to rebalance the informations you almost feel it more than you visually interpret it it is so clean it is so balanced I think that to me is what really sets it apart obviously also not having correctors on the case but when you see all that information lined up perfectly the story that it's telling is very very clean it's one of those things as much as we all stare at watches wouldn't have seen it also the 24hour helps you when you're setting the watch to understand if you go past 12 are you going into the afternoon or are you going into a brand new day and that's been maybe the number one problem when you're setting a QP is that you go am I going to get lucky and that's that that that game of chance is has been has been wiped out now there's also a bit of a red place on that sub dial between what 10 and two now that doesn't mean you can't set it then but you know there's this long held rule you do not want to se set your perpetual calendar do you want to change the hands uh or change any of the functions I should say between 10: and 2: in the morning that that's correct what we have noticed on previous Perpetual calendars is that you have a a risk to damage the watch damage mechanism we wanted to absolutely avoid that so there is a Red Zone in which you can't do the correction because the lever is disengaged from the mechanism but you will never break the mechanism so the movement is the exact same diameter as before yeah and the the depth the thickness of it is the same or is a little bit thicker it's a little bit thinner thinner yeah to add this kind of control layer it requires some space you would ask the engineers you would get the response you know like I need 2 mm more MH and you finally end up with a with a watch which is thicker okay so thanks to rd2 technology we were able to add the QP layer plus the correction layer in the same thickness than the previous watch and by the way what I find cool about that moonface correction by the crown it's a sound that you can hear that click click click click click click I'm so I'm setting the Moon now it really does feel amazing we have worked on the sound it produces you worked on the sound we do some variations to find which is the best for our senses it's not always a comfort on the wrist but it's every Sensation that you will perceive if you look on the watch as collectors I'm sure you will notice we have designed a perfectly balanced sub counter it means that the spaces is constant between the numbers whenever they have one digit or two digits so they're changing which number they use you'll see it goes 1 3 5 7 8 10 and then at that axis the numbers flip so that there's the distan is exactly the same between each number that's kind of a wild idea I mean just from a design perspective too you can feel it you can feel it when you look at it the collector in me sees this watch as a brand new canvas with which to expand on over the years and there's something really exciting about that you're right I mean it leads to the potential for a whole new canvas and a whole new possibility what you can do with a Perpetual now that you don't need the stylus anymore and on top of that now everyone's watch is going to be set right yes it would be their fault now yeah and another thing to point point out too is as someone who not only owns but has collaborated on a QP in the past I don't think that it renders it obsolete I think it actually kind of extends the story of the QP in a way that includes the previous references in a way that becomes a little more historic a little more classic and something to be appreciated but one doesn't cancel out the other it's like a chapter in a story you wouldn't rip out the chapter of a book you just read That's all part of the story cuz to a lot of people might be the same but when when you're looking down at it and you're setting it your interaction with the watch is very special in a way that I don't think you and I normally look at as something to get excited by but it's you really have to see it and hold it and interact with it to realize this is not just an incremental little step in something it really is a new watch one of my favorite things about this conversation is the fact that you engineered or you thought about what it would sound like and feel like to set the moon face I mean that that's the type of thing again that is so special the fact that you guys are taking that much care to do this just says kind of so much about what you guys stand for even today right cuz you don't have to I think that's the thing to point out nobody asked you to nobody expected you to as in demand as these watches are you're not satisfied you're looking at ways to innovate and I find that very inspiring I'm very impassioned as a an engineer I'm never satisfied you know I think I give the instruction to set it in less than 3 minutes that was the maximum that I could bear this is a new interpretation doing everything by the crowd and it really opens a new chapters a new canvas for creativity we try to put ourselves in the shoes of the clients and this is why we think we should do something you know and we should create a watch for the clients and not for the watch makers and Engineers beautiful concise great I loved that I thought that was you're taking home you're taking home a treasure Trove of stuff to cut it's I think I Ben and I were sitting here like there's no more meat on the bone with that watch we got it yeah yeah any other watch you want to put out in front of us while we're on a roll we'll keep talking yeah