Tom Brady and John Mayer are two of the biggest watch collectors in the world. We’ve called the latter the most influential assembler of timepieces on earth while the former sold over $4 million worth of watches at Sotheby’s in December. So, it’s not entirely surprising to see that they are often on the same page. In the fall of 2023, when Rolex started rolling out its “Puzzle dial” Day-Date, Mayer and Brady were both spotted with the piece within a few days. If you wanted any further proof that Audemars Piguet has a hit on its hands with its new 150th anniversary Royal Oak, look no further than the wrists of Mayer and Brady, who were both seen wearing the brand-new piece this week.
A couple of months ago, Audemars Piguet launched a groundbreaking new perpetual calendar movement in time for its 150th anniversary. Dubbed the Calibre 7138, it’s controlled entirely through the crown—there are no tiny pushers in the case sides, and no miniscule corrector tool to potentially misplace. You pull the crown out to successive positions to adjust various calendar information, and as you push it back in, it engages different functions than on its way out. (We know—all this sounds fairly nerdly and unexciting. But for watch guys, it’s truly groundbreaking stuff.)
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One thing we hadn’t seen until this week was someone wearing one of the new QPs in the wild. First up was Tom Brady, who indulged us at the opening of his new store Card Vault by Tom Brady at the American Dream mall in New Jersey—finally, my family’s tax revenue put to good use! The GOAT rocked the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar ref. 26674SG.OO.1320SG.01 in sand gold, the company’s insanely beautiful 18K precious metal alloy of rose and white gold. (The movement has also been fitted to a stainless steel Royal Oak as well as a white-gold Code 11.59.) Measuring 41 mm wide by just 9.5 mm tall, it features a gold-tone Grand Tappisserie dial with black indices as well as the classic Royal Oak integrated bracelet.
Besides the magic going on inside the watch, much of the appeal of the new QPs is in subtle dial tweaks. The display features the months and leap year at 3 o’clock, the moon phase at 6 o’clock, the day and 24-hour indicator at 9 o’clock, the date at 12 o’clock, and the week number along the rehaut (the outermost edge of the dial). “Monday” and “1” align perfectly with 12 o’clock, while a red indicator within the 9 o’clock register serves as a reminder not to set the watch between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. in the morning. (It won’t break the movement—which is a possibility on other QPs—if you set the watch between this time, but the indications might not update properly.) The date numbers, furthermore, are all perfectly spaced—a difficult feat that requires different-sized teeth for each date increment within the date wheel. Five years of careful development went into the Calibre 7138, whose design was granted three patents
A dedicated watch collector, Brady has earned several other notable AP references in the past, so it comes as no surprise that he’d be among the first to snag this special QP. In his December auction, Brady parted with a pièce unique Royal Oak in white gold with a diamond-set bezel, a salmon dial, and his name spelled out in calibré-cut and baguette-cut diamonds in the indices. (The watch’s winding rotor also has Brady’s signature in it.) No stranger to QPs, he’s also been spotted in a Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar in blue ceramic as well as a Royal Oak Grande Complication.