Head of Watches Charles Tearle shares his experience with the timeless designs and impressive craftsmanship of Cartier watches throughout his career, in the lead up to our unique Cartier Curated auction, taking place live online on 29 April, with viewing in London.
Watches
Timeless Design
17 April 2025
Charles Tearle, Heads of Watches
When I began this journey into the vintage and luxury watch industry in 1990, it was prior to the increased popularity of oversized, ultra complicated watches. Vintage Cartier, with their hand-made cases and elegant design, were king. A 1970’s Rolex Daytona was considered too young to be truly collectable, yet a 1970’s Cartier London Tank was immensely desirable and valuable. Some of my fondest memories in those early years was listening to various collectors or dealers discussing the merits of a Cartier watch as a watchmaker would open it for them examining the hallmarks, the stamps, how it was made, all fascinating.
I was fortunate enough to meet a watchmaker who created those watches in 1960’s London workshops and listen to his stories, which is possibly a reason I’ve become so fascinated and enthralled with the brand. How Cartier differed from regular vintage watches was in their method of production, or rather, lack of production. Each watch, certainly in London, was made by hand. It would commence with a movement, the casemaker then made a case to fit it before it went to the dial maker, who made a dial to fit the case, finally, a hand-made specially designed convex and concave square dial was made to fit and sealed into place with wax. As each part was hand-made, nothing was pre-produced as minor variations would mean they wouldn’t necessarily fit together. This is an art that isn’t generally used today due to the cost.
To understand the importance and value of Cartier in the 1960’s, John and Jacqueline Kennedy and Andy Warhol wore a Cartier Tank, Princess Diana wore a Tank Francaise and in recent years numerous celebrities, such as Kanye West and Tyler the Creator have been seen wearing Cartier. It’s a brand for the creative. Personally, Cartier represents timeless design. The first watch they made in 1904, the Santos Dumont, is still a line in production today, as is the famous and undeniably popular Tank. Although Cartier manged to break into the competitive market of mechanical complications in watches, this was never their forte. With a return in demand for watches with style, Cartier has again surged in popularity and is in 2025 now second only to Rolex in watches exported from Switzerland. Fashion is a fickle thing, yet classics never, truly, go out of style.
The collection of mechanical items presented to you within this catalogue were intended to represent the life of Cartier as a brand, from a unique barometer created in 1930 to the relatively inexpensive Le Must de Cartier range of the 1980’s. We wanted to offer something for everyone and present it with an opportunity to be seen, handled and possibly owned, rather than presented simply on a printed page or within a locked cabinet. It’s been a pleasure to have met so many of the original owners of these pieces, or friends and family of the owners who cherished them so much. Thank you for allowing me to present them to the market in this format.