Cartier

MTF
[PuristS]
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Clarification about EWC

cgreen,

Just to clarify.

The original EWC made movements for Cartier for export. I believe Cartier New York encased themselves to avoid tax on fully assembled watches imported into USA. I've seen watches in UK also marked EWC movement but I'm not sure if Cartier London encased them.

The import tax on 18K gold watches was also devastating so many US watches had 14K cases. Obviously, for Cartier buyers, this 2nd tax dodge was not an issue.... 

Remember that by 3rd generation, Cartier was split up amongst cousins and run as three separate entities in Paris, NYC and London....albeit with some mysterious "Cartier spirit" that was not evident within the family then.  Vendome Group (later Richemont) bought back piecemeal and reunited under one entity recently.

Also recently, another company called ECW European Company Watch has been producing cheap steel watches of enormous proportions, following the BIG trend set by Panerai and Audemars Piguet . Don't confuse them with EWC.

Regards,

MTF