The Royal Oak wasn't supposed to work. Now it outperforms most investments.

We've been tracking something unusual in luxury watch markets. While most heirlooms lose value the moment they leave the store, certain timepieces do the opposite. The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak sits at the center of this phenomenon.

Between 1972 and 1976, Audemars Piguet produced just 174 steel Royal Oaks and 12 in yellow gold. That limited production wasn't a marketing strategy. It was survival mode during the quartz crisis.

The scarcity created something unexpected.

When Design Becomes Disruption

In 1976, Jacqueline Dimier designed the first women's Royal Oak. She became one of the first female heads of product design in watchmaking, holding the position from 1975 to 1999. Her approach was radical for the era.

"I wanted the watch to stay big, which wasn't the trend for women at all," Dimier said. While other brands shrank women's watches and covered them in gemstones, she kept the bold proportions. The design refused to apologize for taking up space.

That decision matters now more than it did then.

The Pre-Owned Advantage

Here's where the data gets interesting. Luxury watches appreciated by 147% over the last decade, according to the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index. Between 2013 and 2022, they grew at an average annual rate of 7%. From 2020 to 2022 alone, that jumped to 27%.

Pre-owned models with original box and papers see resale prices increase by 20-30% compared to those without documentation. The investment potential of discontinued Royal Oak references outpaces new releases.

Why? Scarcity compounds over time.

New Royal Oaks enter a market flooded with current production. Pre-owned pieces, especially from limited runs like those early 1970s models, become rarer each year. Collectors compete for the same finite pool. Prices respond accordingly.

What This Means for Heirlooms

We're watching a shift in how luxury items transfer value across generations. Traditional heirlooms—furniture, jewelry, even real estate—often require maintenance costs that erode their worth. A Royal Oak from 1976 needs servicing, but its market value has multiplied many times over.

The watch doesn't just hold value. It accrues it.

This creates an unusual dynamic for anyone thinking about heirloom investments. Buying new means paying retail premium for a piece that enters a saturated market. Buying pre-owned, particularly discontinued references with provenance, means acquiring an asset with demonstrated appreciation trajectory.

The math favors history over novelty.

Dimier's bold design choices in 1976 weren't thinking about resale value in 2025. She was solving for aesthetic integrity and challenging gender norms in watchmaking. But those decisions created lasting scarcity. The watches that refused to follow trends became the ones that defined them.

That's the heirloom paradox. The pieces built without compromise become the ones worth keeping.