This is the Piaget Black Tie Emperador reference 9591. Founded in 1874 by Georges Edourd Piaget, the brand has been a manufacturer of movements and movement components for more than a century. With a focus on ultra-thin movements, Piaget produced and sold its own wristwatches from as early as the beginning of the 20th century as well as supplying movements and movement parts to other renowned watch brands.

In 1956, Piaget introduced two ultra-thin calibres that the brand would become renowned for - the cal. 9P manual winding at just 2.00mm in height and what was then the world’s thinnest automatic movement with the 2.3mm tall cal. 12P and these two movements lay the foundation of the Piaget brand as a specialist in ultra-thin dress watches – a perfect blend of its timepiece and jewellery heritage.

Running on the aforementioned cal. 9P, the Piaget Emperador occupies a lesser-known yet important part in the brand’s watchmaking history. Originally introduced in the 1970s equipped with the successful 9P movement, the reference was characterized by its tonneau-shaped and ultra-thin case. In particular, this 9591 features a tiger’s eye stone dial with its unique natural graduations due to the presence of iron ore.

Highly distinct with its tiger’s eye stone dial, it is worth noting that Piaget was among the pioneers of such dials since the brand’s incorporation of stone dials in 1963. With the increasing popularity of moderately-sized dress watches, the once overlooked vintage Piagets have rightfully found their way back into the limelight.