This is the 41 mm chronograph with the tapisserie taken off. Almost every Royal Oak chronograph in this generation carries a Grande Tapisserie dial with applied hour-markers and a date, and this reference has none of the three. The dial is yellow gold treated with black PVD and then vertically satin-finished, so the surface is brushed in one direction rather than cut into a grid, and it carries no applied markers at all. The function set drops the date as well, leaving a flyback chronograph with hours, minutes and small seconds and nothing else. It is also the only two-tone construction in the family, pairing a stainless steel case and bracelet with yellow gold links and a yellow gold bezel. Every decision on the watch runs against the collection's normal vocabulary at once.
The case is 41 mm across and 12.4 mm thick in stainless steel, with the octagonal bezel in yellow gold carrying the eight exposed hexagonal screws that have identified the Royal Oak since 1972. Brushed faces meet polished chamfers on every edge, with each change of finish falling exactly on the line, and running two metals across one watch means that treatment has to be executed correctly in both: steel holds a cooler and harder edge, while yellow gold is softer, takes a brighter polish and shows any inconsistency at once. The height comes from the flyback chronograph rather than from styling, and makes the watch a noticeably larger presence than the 10.5 mm selfwinding references at the same diameter. The dial is yellow gold with a black PVD coating and vertical satin-finishing, which is an unusual construction because the gold beneath is not visible as gold at all, and what remains is a dark brushed surface with directional grain rather than the recessed grid the collection is known for. Against that, yellow gold Royal Oak hands are the only bright element on the dial and the only thing tying it to the metal running through the bezel and bracelet. The bracelet is stainless steel with yellow gold links, tapering from the case, closing on an AP folding clasp, with the two metals alternating along its full length rather than being separated into sections. Alternating them is what makes a two-tone bracelet read as one object rather than two joined together, and it means every link junction has to hold both finishes cleanly. Two-tone also ages differently from a single metal, since steel and gold wear at different rates and the contrast between them softens over years rather than staying fixed.
The function set is a flyback chronograph with hours, minutes and small seconds. There is no date. A flyback returns the timing hand to zero and restarts it from a single press while the chronograph continues running, replacing the stop, reset and start sequence a conventional chronograph requires, and it exists for timing consecutive intervals rather than isolated ones. Removing the date from a chronograph dial is a legibility decision as much as an aesthetic one, because a date window competes with the counters for the same limited space, and on a dial with no applied markers to anchor the eye that competition would have been more damaging than usual. What remains is three counters, two hands and a brushed field.
The Royal Oak is the collection Audemars Piguet is built on, and the 41 mm chronographs sit above the selfwinding references in both function and case height. The 26240 is the current generation, issued across rose gold, stainless steel and black ceramic with Grande Tapisserie dials in four colours, and in a fully gem-set version under a separate reference that sets the dial, bezel and bracelet with diamonds while retaining the full function set. Two references depart from the tapisserie entirely: a black ceramic edition with a vertically satin-finished blue dial, and this two-tone steel and yellow gold reference. Those two are the only places in the family where the collection signature dial treatment is absent. Everything else in the generation, across three case materials and four dial colours, keeps the grid.
This reference suits a collector who wants a Royal Oak chronograph that is not immediately identifiable as one. Without the tapisserie and without applied markers, the dial gives up the two features that identify the collection from a distance, leaving only the case geometry to do that work. Two-tone pushes it further from the default, since the combination of steel and yellow gold is a deliberately old-fashioned pairing that the collection has largely moved away from. Whether the result reads as considered or as contrarian is worth deciding in the metal. It appeals to someone who already owns a conventional chronograph in the family and wants a second that shares almost nothing with it beyond the case, and to someone who values a dial with directional grain over a recessed grid.
