Cartier

SJX
[Purist]
8540

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A piece of history - Cartier Tortue Minute Repeater circa 1928

This Tortue minute repeater wristwatch, c. 1928, from Cartier Paris is a small watch, at 30 mm wide and 33 mm long. It is cased in yellow gold and fitted with a modern lizard skin strap. A watch similar to this one, but dating from 1929, still holds the record for the most expensive Cartier wristwatch ever sold at auction when it hammered for CHF993,500 at Antiquorum in 2002.

The movement is a minute repeater calibre from European Watch & Clock Company (EWC), which obtained its movements from LeCoultre. Adjusted to 8 positions with wolf's teeth winding wheels and Breguet overcoil, it is a movement of peerless quality, equal to the absolute best of the period (Patek, Vacheron et al), as majority of the EWC movements were.

The back of the watch is engraved on the back:

A search online indicates Mr Audibert was a stockbroker with Gude, Winmill & Co. The Union Club on the other hand is one of the oldest men's clubs in the United States and one that has in the past counted amongst its members various illustratrious members of American society. click here for an NYT piece on the Union Club.

You can feel the history in a watch like this and it makes you ponder. With a watch like that and a membership of the Union Club, Mr Audibert must have been a fairly rich man. One wonders what Mr Audibert's reaction to the typographical error in the engraving was.

Pictured above with a contemporary Tortue Monopoussoir chronograph

And here with a modern Santos 100 XL  

And for those wondering, the repeater still does sound fantastic after 80 years. It is loud, clear and resonant, though it strikes a bit quickly. Besides the lost arts of the gong alloy and repeater construction, another reason for the sound is the thinner and lighter case compared to modern repeater watches.

Beautiful as it is, this is an exceedingly rare watch. Only two have ever come up at auction and this is one of them. It is an almost sentimental reminder of Cartier's first golden age in watchmaking.

- SJX

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