The short answer
The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar reference 25659 belongs to the first generation of perpetual Royal Oaks, the early-1980s family built on the ultra-thin 2120/2800 calibre. Anything advertised as a "replica 25659" is a counterfeit copy of that watch. Selling or importing it into the United States is illegal, and the perpetual calendar is the one complication the copy industry has never reproduced convincingly. Here is what the reference is, what a copy actually delivers, and where the legal line sits.
What reference 25659 is
Audemars Piguet launched the Royal Oak in 1972. About a decade later the line gained a perpetual calendar, with the 2120/2800 as the engine: a 2120 base carrying a perpetual module thin enough to keep the watch wearable. Those complicated Royal Oaks came in yellow gold, white gold, and two-tone steel-and-gold, with steel-only examples being the scarcest. The dial used the Grande Tapisserie pattern, a moonphase low on the face, and month, day, and leap-year indications spread around it.
The complication is the whole story. A perpetual calendar tracks 28, 30, and 31-day months and folds in the leap-year cycle, so it needs no manual correction until roughly 2100. That is a mechanical program built from cams, levers, and a stacked module, and it is costly to design and to assemble. A plain date window is easy. This is not.
Why copies struggle with this reference
Most "perpetual calendar" replicas are not perpetual calendars. Typical builds look like this:
- A stock automatic or quartz movement with a day/date or annual-calendar module that mishandles the end of February.
- Decorative subdials or printed indicators that never move, or move on a fixed 31-day program.
- A moonphase disc that rotates but ignores the 29.5-day cycle.
Then there is the finish. The octagonal bezel, the integrated bracelet, the bevels, the caseback engraving: that is where a Royal Oak lives or dies, and copies rarely get the light play right. Solid gold cases carry assay hallmarks. Plated copies lose their color at the edges. A display caseback reveals a movement decorated with perlage and côtes de Genève, and no copy matches that under a loupe.
Servicing is the part buyers forget. No authorized watchmaker will touch a counterfeit, and replacement parts do not exist. When it stops, it becomes a shelf object.
The legal picture in the U.S.
Trafficking in counterfeit goods is a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 2320, which reaches sellers and distributors. For buyers, Customs and Border Protection can seize counterfeit shipments. The personal-use exemption that sometimes applies to trademarked imports does not cover goods bearing a counterfeit mark. Order from overseas and the parcel can be stopped, with no refund and no recourse.
Resale is the other dead end. A counterfeit has no legitimate secondary market, no insurance value, and no repair path.
If the look is what you want
If the appeal is the Genta-era octagonal design rather than the complication, there are honest routes. Pre-owned Royal Oaks in simpler references hold value and can be serviced. A handful of independent brands build their own octagonal integrated-bracelet watches under their own names. Neither will say Audemars Piguet on the dial, and that is the trade: a watch you can service, insure, and one day sell.