Watch Paparazzi

Politician Hun Sen spotted wearing Audemars Piguet

Hun Sen, Cambodia's long-serving Prime Minister, was recently spotted wearing one of the most technically ambitious timepieces in contemporary watchmaking: the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Grand Complication in black ceramic, reference 26582CE. The sighting adds another headline chapter to his well-documented affinity for high-complication watches, and given the reference involved, it's one worth examining closely.

The 26582CE represents the full summit of the Royal Oak Offshore line. Its 44mm black ceramic case houses the calibre 2891, a manual-winding movement of extraordinary complexity that delivers three grand complications simultaneously: a minute repeater that chimes the hours, quarter-hours, and minutes on demand; a split-seconds (rattrapante) chronograph for measuring parallel elapsed times; and a perpetual calendar that automatically accounts for months of varying lengths and leap years through 2100. The movement comprises over 650 individual components, and assembly is entrusted to a single specialist watchmaker whose work on a single piece can span several months. The ceramic case is not merely an aesthetic choice — it provides exceptional hardness and scratch resistance, a practical consideration for a watch intended to be worn rather than displayed.

For collectors, the 26582CE occupies a category of its own. Grand complications of this nature are produced in extremely limited numbers each year — AP has never disclosed exact figures, but credible industry estimates place annual production in the single digits. The combination of all three complications in one movement, married to the Offshore's bold 44mm architecture, produces a horological tension that divides opinion but commands universal respect. It is a watch that serious collectors track closely; examples rarely surface on the secondary market, and when they do, they trade well above list.

Hun Sen has appeared in numerous photographs wearing high-end timepieces over the years, a habit that has drawn criticism from transparency advocates given Cambodia's development challenges. The 26582CE, with a list price in the region of $725,000, sits at the apex of any watch collection by any measure.

On the grey market, confirmed sales of the 26582CE have reached and exceeded the $1 million threshold, reflecting both scarcity and the sustained global appetite for grand complications from Le Brassus. For a reference this rare, market value is largely determined by provenance and condition rather than conventional supply-and-demand dynamics.