Audemars Piguet 26735ST

Audemars Piguet

Ref. 26735ST

Watch n° 293 for number of VIPs spotted with this watch
Audemars Piguet n° 51 for number of VIPs spotted with this watch
Number of VIPs spotted with this watch: 3
Number of total spotted: 4
Preferred VIP category: comedian (2 VIPs)
List price: £190,000
Market price: $675,000

The Audemars Piguet 26735ST has turned up on three notably different wrists: Qatari royal Prince Joaan Bin Hamad Al Thani, comedian and producer Kevin Hart, and rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z. That particular combination — a member of one of the world's most prominent ruling families, one of Hollywood's highest-earning entertainers, and a figure who has long treated serious watchmaking as a genuine hobby rather than a status accessory — says something meaningful about where the 26735ST sits. It is not a watch that appeals primarily to one crowd. It bridges the worlds of old-money collecting, celebrity culture, and hip-hop's well-documented appetite for high complications, which is a harder overlap to achieve than it might sound.

The 26735ST was released in 2022 as part of Audemars Piguet's Royal Oak 50th anniversary programme, and in stainless steel it represents a deliberate tension: a movement-level complication — a flying tourbillon with full openworking — housed in what is nominally the entry-level case material for the Royal Oak line. That combination drove immediate demand. Retail pricing placed it well into six-figure territory, and authorised dealer allocations were extremely limited from launch. On the secondary market the reference has traded at a consistent premium above retail, reflecting both the anniversary context and the straightforward scarcity of tourbillon-grade steel sports watches at any price. Waitlists at authorised dealers remain long in most markets, and grey-market premiums have held with more stability than many AP references that spiked and corrected after 2021.

The 26735ST houses AP's Calibre 2971, a hand-wound flying tourbillon visible through the fully skeletonised dial, in a 41mm stainless steel Royal Oak case. Prince Joaan's sighting in particular drew attention to the reference among serious collectors, while Hart and Jay-Z brought it to a broader audience already primed to notice what is on a notable wrist.