The Original Affordable Royal Oak Alternative Is Now Even Better

Getting better all the time.

Close-up of a silver stainless steel watch with a textured blue dial and silver hour markers on a blue background.

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Published February 20, 2026

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There is no shortage of affordable alternatives to the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak floating around the watch industry these days, from the Tissot PRX and the Christopher Ward Twelve to the Maurice Lacroix Aikon and Alpina Alpiner Extreme.

Most of these alternatives have only popped up in the last decade as the Royal Oak‘s popularity has exploded. But not the Nivada Grenchen F77. Nivada was producing affordable AP alternatives before it was cool, with the original F77 — which features a bezel and dial very reminiscent of the Royal Oak — debuting just five years after the Genta-designed icon in 1977.

ap gold dial royal oak jumbo watch — The Royal Oak is one of the most copied watches on the planet.

Last summer, Nivada unveiled a new generation of the F77, the MKII, with a slimmer case, drilled and reshaped lugs that allow for a more natural drape of the bracelet, and a reworked bracelet.

However, the watch debuted with just one dial option: black onyx stone. Now, Nivada has properly rolled out an entire line of F77 MKIIs, including some that are dead ringers for the Royal Oak.

Dialed in

The new range of F77 watches is all about the dials.

The stainless steel MKII case, with its 38mm diameter and 12.2mm thickness, and the reworked lugs and bracelet are all the same as on the onyx model that debuted in July. Also unchanged is the Soprod Calibre P024 automatic powering the watch.

What is new are the dial options, and there are a bunch of them. Eight, to be exact, split evenly across two categories: Stone dials and Tressed, which is a three-dimensional basketweave pattern.

Stainless steel wristwatch with a blue speckled stone dial and silver hour markers on a matching metal bracelet. — Lapis Lazuli is one of four new stone dials for the F77 MKII.

Starting with the stone dials, you can choose from Meteorite, Lapis Lazuli, Dark Blue Aventurine and Green Aventurine. The meteorite here is dark gray, almost black in appearance, while the lapis is the stone’s typical brilliant blue with white and gold inflections. It’s easy to see why this stone has become so popular among watch brands in recent years.

What I find most interesting here is the use of both kinds of aventurine. The vast majority of “aventurine” watch dials aren’t made with a natural stone but rather with aventurine glass, which is dark blue or black glass with copper flecks in it, making it resemble the night sky. That’s the material used for the Dark Blue Aventurine F77.

Close-up of a Nivada wristwatch with a green marbled dial, silver hour markers, and a brushed stainless steel bezel. — The rarely utilized green aventurine makes an appearance as one of the stone dials.

Far rarer to see on a watch dial is natural aventurine, which looks nothing like its Venetian-invented homonym. It’s a medium green stone with some sparkly inclusions, but it looks far earthier, more natural and less ethereal than aventurine glass. It’s less visually mesmerizing, in my opinion, but if you’re all about natural looks, then you may prefer it.

All four of the stone-dial options also carry over the dressier dauphine handset that was introduced on the onyx-dial MkII last year.

The Tressed dials are where most people in search of a cheaper Royal Oak will turn, as their basketweave pattern is quite similar to AP’s famous waffle-like Tapisserie dial.

Stainless steel wristwatch with a textured blue dial, silver hour markers, and a date window at 3 o'clock. — For maximum Royal Oak vibes, go with a Tressed dial.

They also bring back the original baton handset, which is more faithful to the original F77, more similar to the Royal Oak’s handset and a better visual match to the watch’s baton indices. This also means more lume, as all three hands feature green-emission Super-LumiNova along with the lume plots outside each index. The stone-dial versions only feature the lume plots, with no lume on the hands, which doesn’t make a lot of sense.

There are four color options for the Tressed dial: White, Gray, Black and Blue. Black and Gray are very similar in appearance, and I would’ve preferred to see one of them swapped out with something more interesting — green, perhaps — but both the white and blue look great. Blue certainly reads more “Royal Oak,” but this isn’t Bleu Nuit, Nuage 50 — it’s a brighter, more electric blue that’s quite fun.

Lastly, the Tressed options are the only way you can get a date. All colors are available in both date and no-date options, while the Stone dials only come sans date.

Silver stainless steel wristwatch with a textured white dial and metal bracelet worn on a wrist. — The white Tressed dial resembles a more vintage-styled Royal Oak.

Availability and pricing

All of Nivada’s new F77 references are available on either an integrated canvas Velcro or rubber strap if you don’t want the bracelet, and you’ll save some money going with a strap option, too.

All versions, save for the Green Aventurine, start at $1,160 on either strap. The Tressed dials go for $1,360 on the bracelet, while the Lapis, Meteorite and Dark Blue Aventurine are all priced at $1,560 on the bracelet. This seems like a pricing error on Nivada’s website to me, as it’s the same bracelet on all models, so I don’t see why the stone dials would cost more on the bracelet but not on the strap. I assume the stone dial strap price is currently too low.

I’m guessing the correct pricing for all stone dials is what’s shown for the Green Aventurine version, which retails for $1,360 on the strap and $1,560 on the bracelet. I’ve reached out to Nivada for clarification on the price discrepancy.

Silver stainless steel wristwatch with blue textured dial and date window at 3 o'clock.

Nivada Grenchen F77 MKII

Specs

Case Size	38mm
Movement	Soprod Cal. P024 automatic
Water Resistance	100m

$1,360 at Nivada Grenchen

About the Author:

Johnny Brayson is an editor at Gear Patrol mostly covering watches. He enjoys watches that are packed with blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em details and believes nearly every watch could stand to be a tad smaller.

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