Piaget

Altiplano and the ultra-thin tradition

Altiplano is the reason to look at Piaget. The house built the 9P hand-wound calibre at 2mm in 1957 and the 12P automatic at 2.3mm in 1960, and it has been setting thinness records ever since. The result is a dress watch that genuinely disappears under a cuff, with a dial left as clean as the case is flat, sometimes in meteorite, onyx or lapis.

Polo, Limelight and Possession

Polo began in 1979 as an integrated gold watch where case and bracelet flowed into one another; Polo S brought the cushion-in-circle design into steel at a lower entry point. Limelight and Limelight Gala are the jewellery watches, the Gala recognisable by its asymmetric elongated lugs. Possession takes the spinning-bezel idea from Piaget's jewellery into a watch, and Gouverneur is the round classical line.

Why ultra-thin is difficult

Thinness is not a styling decision. Reducing a movement's height means thinner plates, smaller barrels and less tolerance for shock, which is why so few houses do it well and why Piaget builds its own ultra-thin calibres rather than buying them. It also means these watches want a gentler life than a sports watch: they are not fragile, but they are not the piece to wear to the gym. Serviced properly they run indefinitely.

Gold, stone dials and condition

Most Piaget is solid gold, which is softer than steel and shows wear more readily, so case sharpness and bracelet stretch are the first things we assess. Hard-stone dials are individual by nature and small variations in pattern are a feature rather than a fault, though we do check for hairlines. Diamond settings are identified as factory or aftermarket. We note box and papers where present, quote price-on-request pieces on enquiry, and buy and trade Piaget.