Interesting. I was about to start a thread on the same topic. I’m not actively looking for another moonphase, but I probably will be soon. I currently own an Omega cosmic moonphase from 1950, and love it, although that watch is a minefield of redials.
My interest has been piqued by the Audemars Piguet Quantieme, caliber 2120, especially the salmon dial. These are certainly not cheap, but they seem to be relatively affordable in comparison to other perpetual calendars made by the “big three.”
That salmon colored dial is very rare, no more than a handful would have been made. Not sure if the case is WG or platinum. I have an extensive catalogue of AP perpetual calendars and that one does not show up. In general AP made very few of them in white metal.
The first generation AP's made from 1978 to 1993 are stellar values....they are readily available as they made about 7,300 of them during that period. You can get one for less than $10k, add in a service and you have a great perpetual calendar that will run circles around any of the new stuff at 4x the price, and they are thin, less than 8mm.
