The rumour had circulated for weeks; now it is official. Audemars Piguet has entered the certified pre-owned market with The Watch Keepers, a dedicated online platform that went live this week — and in doing so, the maison from Le Brassus has chosen to do almost everything in-house, from archive to algorithm.
The premise is simple; the execution is not. Collectors who have owned an Audemars Piguet for at least two years may offer it for sale, beginning with the serial number and proof of ownership. The watch then travels to one of the manufacture’s service centres, where it is serviced, authenticated and graded on a five-point scale covering case, dial and bracelet, a process overseen from Le Brassus itself. Because Audemars Piguet is the sole custodian of its archive registers and service records, every piece is cross-checked against its own history — a level of verification, the maison notes, that no external partner can replicate. Only then is the watch photographed, catalogued and listed, with the seller free to set a fixed price or open the piece to bidding. It remains the seller’s property until the moment it sells, and it leaves in a Watch Keepers travel pouch with a certificate of authenticity and a two-year warranty.
Around a hundred watches will be live at any given time, spanning collections and eras, with members of the AP team appearing on the platform as “Expert Watch Keepers” to guide buyers through the inventory. “The launch of The Watch Keepers marks an important and long-anticipated milestone for Audemars Piguet,” said Marc Montagne, the maison’s director of certified pre-owned, adding that the platform responds to strong demand from collectors and supports the long-term lifecycle of the brand’s watches.
For now, transactions are limited to the European Union and Switzerland, though the platform can be browsed from anywhere and expansion to further regions is planned — a detail Gulf collectors, among the maison’s most devoted clientele, will be watching closely. Audemars Piguet follows Rolex, whose certified pre-owned programme arrived in 2022 through authorised dealers; the difference is that AP has kept the whole affair under its own roof. In a secondary market long ruled by middlemen, the house has decided to become its own.
