The Pursuit Of Ultra Thin Watchmaking, And The Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Automatic 910P

Ultra thin watchmaking presents so many challenges unique to the genre that arguments have been made (including by yours truly) that it should be considered a category of complicated watchmaking all its own – if not complicated in terms of parts count, it’s certainly complicated in terms of challenges. As watches get thinner, everything from case construction to the precision required in movement construction become progressively more challenging. Historically, companies and individual watchmakers and engineers have pushed cases to such slim dimensions that there is a real risk that the case will actually bend if you strap the watch on, and movements, beyond a certain point, are challenged to have mainsprings strong enough to produce a usable power reserve, and to be rigid enough to ensure that components like gear teeth and escapement parts (which also have to get progressively thinner) are still able to engage with each other. For this reason, watches designed primarily to be physically robust and very precise, have tended to be thicker, with cases strong enough to ensure both excellent shock resistance and the rigidity necessary to help ensure precise operation of the movement.

Piaget has had a very long history as a pioneer and record-setter in ultra thin watchmaking, going back to its own in-house calibers 9P (manual, launched in 1957) and 12P (selfwinding with microrotor, 1960) which were launched at a time when ultra thin watches were very much in vogue, as they would continue to be, even and especially in quartz models, through the mid-1980s. (Movements like the Jaeger-LeCoultre caliber 849 and the F. Piguet caliber 21 were just two of the most famous ultra thin calibers available to watch brands as well). In recent years, the competition to set and break records has become even more keen, with Bulgari a strong competitor and with records set by Richard Mille and most recently, Konstantin Chaykin. Setting records however can become such a strong draw for the attention of collectors, that the fact that there’s more to a watch design than measurements can become a little lost in the conversation, which is something that occurred to me just this week in the context of the Piaget Ultimate Automatic 910P.

The 910P is not a new watch, although it was at one point of course – in 2017, to be precise, when it was at launch the thinnest selfwinding watch in production, at 4.30mm thick (and 41mm in diameter). One of the most notable technical features of the watch has to do with its construction, which is a departure from the conventional approach common to virtually all wristwatches (common to virtually all watches, as far as that goes) which is to have a movement, capable of running entirely on its own, placed inside a case which is essentially a container for the movement, and which provides protection and, hopefully, an appealing form factor as well. (Amusingly, the closest thing we have to an accepted dictionary of watchmaking terms, the Berner Dictionary Of Horology, which is maintained online by the FH, defines an extra thin watch as “one which is extremely thin” and leaves it at that).

The 910P is the name of the movement but the usual distinction between movement and case doesn’t exist in this watch. Instead, in order to reduce the height to a minimum, Piaget used the watch case itself as part of the movement plate. The upper pivots for the going train run in jewels set into a bridge at the same height as the dial, as are those for the automatic winding train, and the keyless works and mainspring, as well as the click, are “floating” – that is to say, running only in pivots on the underside of the wheels.

The rotor for the automatic winding system is a thin crescent on the periphery of the movement (it’s gold, in this case with a blue PVD treatment) and it’s barely visible, although the caliber number’s printed on it which makes it easier to see its oscillations. Despite the extreme thinness of the watch, the power reserve is quite respectable at 48 hours, with the balance vibrating at 3Hz/21,600 vph (slightly slower than the 4Hz/28,800 vph rate of most contemporary movements, which probably contributes to the ability of the watch to achieve a 48 hour power reserve with a very flat mainspring).

This particular movement construction strategy was pioneered in mechanical watchmaking by Audemars Piguet, in 1986, in the reference 25643/caliber 2870. The history of the idea goes back, interestingly enough, to quartz watches, and specifically to the ultra thin watches produced in the late 1970s, including the Concord Delirium and the Omega Dinosaure.

The Delirium was one of several watches developed from the ESA/Ebauches SA/ETA project 999, during a period of especially keen international competition between Citizen, Seiko, and the Swiss luxury watch brands to have the bragging rights from producing the world’s thinnest watch. In order to keep these watches as flat as possible, the caseback was used as the movement plate, which allowed the thinnest Delirium watch, the Delirium IV, to be just 0.98mm thick. They were not commercially successful and very expensive, but the same basic idea would subsequently be used for the first Swatch watches – the Delirum Vulgare, or “Delirium For The Masses” as it was called during development at ETA.

Unlike some more recent record setting ultra thin watches, the Piaget 910P feels very much like a classic piece of ultra thin watchmaking. The case is rose gold, not some more exotic material chose for its rigidity, and while the layout on the dial side is certainly unusual, the watch overall doesn’t feel like an overt attempt to set a record, but rather, like an ultra thin watch designed to do what, traditionally, ultra thin watches were meant to do, which is to show the time in an urbane, sophisticated, and tasteful way.

The pursuit of records in watchmaking is a fascinating business, and I think the technical feats achieved when watchmakers try to beat and set new records do a service to watchmaking as a whole, in expanding the overall vocabulary of watch design, and engaging the imagination of designers. But watchmaking’s a lot more than a competition sport, and the setting of new records need not invalidate preceding work if it’s good work. The pursuit of records runs the risk of seeming a little bit like stunt watchmaking – the equivalent of a chef creating a dish less for its appeal as food than for its appeal on Instagram. This problem isn’t just confined to ultra thin watchmaking, either; it can crop up in the pursuit of the ultimate high frequency chronograph, or a new record in power reserve or the precision of a moonphase display.

As with any design object, we always want a watch if possible to be more than the sum of its parts, and not to be reduced in our perception of it to a single feature, including its height. The 910P in the metal is an extremely interesting technical achievement, but perhaps most importantly, it’s also a very satisfying watch.

The Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Automatic 910P: as shown, case in rose gold, 41mm x 4.30mm, 20 meter water resistance. Movement, ultra thin 910P, running at 3Hz/21,600 vph in 30 jewels, 48 hour power reserve with gold peripheral rotor. Price, $39,500. The 1916 Company is proud to be an authorized retailer for Piaget.