Important Swiss gold astronomic with twelve complications Circa 1989

Gold astronomical watch Made for Asprey
–
A very fine, very rare and important 18K gold Swiss, astronomic with twelve complications pocket watch, circa 1989. Trip minute-repeating, two-train grande and petite sonnerie, perpetual calendar, chronograph, moon phases and lunar. Accompanied by a fitted box. Made for Asprey, London. Hinged gold cuvette engraved with the technical details.White enamel dial, radial Roman numerals, outer minute and fifths of a second division, Arabic five minute/second numerals, subsidiary dials for the days of the week, the months and four-year cycle, date, seconds, aperture for the moon phases with the lunar calendar. Blued steel spade hands.
–
A rhodium-plated movement, Geneva striping decoration, 35 jewels, tandem winding with two-wheel trains, straight-line lever escapement, monometallic balance, self-compensating Breguet balance spring, index regulator, repeating on gongs activated by a trip-slide on the band, strike/silent and grande/petite sonnerie selection levers protruding from under the bezel. Dial, case and movement signed.
–
Diameter: 63 mm
–
Signed: Audemars Piguet  Genève
–
Audemars Piguet Grande Complication watches are extremely rare. Several ultra-complicated watches such as the present one were made by Audemars Piguet, for retailers such as the Uhrenfabrik Union, Dürrstein & Co. in Dresden, and J.W. Benson, London, and Smith and Son, London. They often bore the retailer’s name on the dial. This watch is richly illustrated in Audemars Piguet, by Giesbert L. Brunner, Christian Pfeiffer Belli and Martin K. Wehrli. For a history of Audemars Piguet.
–
The complications of this watch are: Day of the week – Date – Month – Leap year – Moon phases and lunar calendar – Two-wheel trains – Tandem winding – Chronograph – Minute repeat – Grande sonnerie – Petite sonnerie – Silent mechanism