The Cartier Tortue Perpetual Calender ref. 2540

Jan 15, 2020,19:14 PM
 

Hi Everyone,


Just want to share my recently acquired Cartier Tortue Perpetual Calender (Ref. 2540) from the CPCP collection.
Over the years I have bought a few vintage and new Cartier watches for my wife, but never had one myself until now. This is my first Cartier watch and I love it.
Recently, I was looking for an office watch, this watch caught my eye in a vintage shop while window shopping and fell in love with it at first sight. So I went home thinking about it and tried to search more info on the watch. Nothing really came up. So I went digging around looking at past auction listings and ebay listings for past catalogues, The watch grew on me fast. And after a few days, I went to the shop, negotiated a great deal and bought it. It was watch only, and didnt have any paper with it. None of the listings online had paper with this watch, except one with a service reciept. 
Love the tortue case shape and love how it wears on my 16cm wrist. Not too big and not too small. and relatively slim at 9.7mm thickness.

Heres some pictures of it:



Wristshot - 34mm wide, 43mm lug to lug (16cm wrist)




Look at that central rose motif and guilloche dial!  




cal.9100MC movement by Frederic Piguet with interlaced double C declorations




Love the curves and reflections on the Tortue.

Below is the info on the watch gathered from a few sites.

Cartier Ref. 2540 Collection Privee Tortue Automatic Perpetual Calendar 18k White Gold

- Introduced in 2001

- 18K whitegold case w/ 18k white gold deployment buckle

- Case width 34mm (excluding crown) and 43mm Lug to Lug

- Barrel shaped tonneau solid two-body case

- Curved sapphire crystals, and curved sapphire caseback

- Case back engraved with "CARTIER – WATER RESISTANT – 2450 – SWISS MADE," hallmarks, and a serial number

- Octagonal pull out winding crown set with a sapphire cabochon

- Polished straight screwed lugs, and convex bezel

- Silver flinque sunray guilloche dial with painted black Roman numeral hour markers, with the Cartier secret signature in the "X" around a black railway-style minute scale with black square hour indices.

- Blued steel Breguet-style hands

- Three silver recessed subsidiary dials with black Arabic numerals, markers, and blued indicator hands, including a radial date register at 9 o'clock, a month and red leap year dial at 6 o'clock, and there is a radial day indicator in French at the 3 o'clock position

- Water resistant to 30 meters/100 feet

- 40-hour power reserve at full winding

- 11mm thickness from bottom of lug to top of crystals, as the watch is curved, the thickest part of the watch is only 9.7mm

- Mechanical automatic self-winding Cartier caliber 9100 MC movement. Manufactured by frederic piguet.

- Perpetual Calender complicatons with month, date, day of the week and leap year indicator

- Movement is rhodium-plated and engraved with special Cartier double C and oeil-de-perdrix embellishment

- 29 jewels

- A straight-line lever escapement, and a monometallic balance. It includes a shock-absorber device, a self-compensating flat balance-spring

- 18K white gold rotor with a skeletonized Cartier signature

- Oscillates at a frequency of 28,800 vph (4 Hz)

- Cal. 9100MC Diameter 25.6mm, and Height 4.45mm

 

Found these information from EWC past listing , Past Auctions Photo , and an Ebay listing for the technical details sheet in Spanish





Still many questions on the watch
- how many was produced ? (i could only find 4 samples online)
- how long it was produced for?
- was this a Frence market only watch (as all the samples and pictures i saw have the Weekdays in French) but the tech sheet is in Spanish.
- what was the MSRP of the watch?
- when was my watch sold and where was it sold?
- what is that film slide on the tech spec sheet

wish Cartier have the Extract from Archives service.

Anyone know around how much Cartier will charge for a Perpetual overhaul service? Called a boutique, but they say this will have to take it in and assess it first before they could quote me. Anyone have past experience?


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Comments: view entire thread

 

First and foremost welcome to the forum.

 
 By: Bill : January 15th, 2020-21:05
Here you will get honest comments and assessments from true collectors. The first question i have why do you feel it needs to be serviced. If it is running within reasonable specs just enjoy it. If it is slipping and keeping terrible time the yes service ... 

Thanks for commenting

 
 By: docob : January 15th, 2020-22:04
As there no second hands, not sure if the watch is running in specs. for the week i have been wearing it, time seems to be correct. One thing i have notice when setting the leap year indicator is that it is not fully centered. if u look at the pic i took ... 

Spectacular!

 
 By: blau : January 16th, 2020-04:03
My first, and thus far only, Cartier is a Tortue from the Collection Privee as well. I think it's the most beautiful watch I've ever owned. ...  

Very nice MP!

 
 By: docob : January 16th, 2020-06:54
Love the blue on the dial, very special. Definitly would like to get one in the future.

Congratulations with your first Collection Privée model

 
 By: Geo : January 16th, 2020-04:11
This is a fantastic looking watch and so much more attractive than the yellow gold version. For me CPCP was the best Cartier ever produced, the series ran from 1998-2008. It is hard to say when your watch was sold, all I know it was not available during t... 

Thanks Geo for your reply.

 
 By: docob : January 16th, 2020-07:04
does cartier usually sell french versions of the watch overseas as well? Or all oversea versions of any model will be in english? Read some post about the CPCP that they hav special versions for the chinese market. so my first guess was this one is a spec... 

In general all Cartier watches are International releases, that are produced in Switserland

 
 By: Geo : January 16th, 2020-09:31
But there are exceptions, sometimes a limited edition is made for a certain market. So during the CPCP period, there was f.i. a Tank Cintrée with two timezones, one had roman numerals and the other one had Chinese numerals. This watch was only available i... 

Thank you Geo. learn something new everday!

 
 By: docob : January 16th, 2020-17:47
That privee winder box seems even rarer than the watch. and that wooden box w/ loupe set is pricey!

I agree with Geo that the CPCP period generated many of the most interesting watches from Cartier.

 
 By: CrookedOak : March 5th, 2020-11:51
I found some additional information in the WristWatch Annual from 2002. I've attached the image for your reference. Congrats on a great piece! ...