The weather is finally cooling down and there is a definite chill in the air as we hit mid-October. At long last it’s now the season for dressing up in handsome sweaters and vests, sports jackets & suits. And that makes my latest offering just about as fitting for these finer sartorial months as a Savile Row suit. It’s a very uncommon and drop dead gorgeous men’s Cartier Tank Obus in solid 18k Yellow Gold featuring a stunning silver guilloché Roman numeral dial and high-grade manual wind movement.
What makes this model so special is that it is part of the now discontinued and dearly loved Collection Privée Cartier Paris (CPCP), which was produced in limited numbers from the late 1990s until the early 2000s, and marked the return of Cartier utilizing truly high quality movements again after many years in the ETA and quartz wilderness. Not to be confused with the common plain quartz versions strewn across the internet, this scarce CPCP Obus (reference W1527551, I believe) features Cartier’s caliber 430 MC, a highly decorated version of Piaget’s fine ultra-slim cal. 430P.
The elite CPCP collection also mined Cartier’s storied past for the special models created. In this case, the Tank Obus was originally designed in the late 1920s and furthered Louis Cartier’s fascination with modern weaponry as design inspiration with it’s stylized bullet-shaped lugs (“obus” means shell in French, as in artillery). This classic mid-size men’s dress watch is in really excellent pre-owned condition and with its unique, well-engineered screwed case and gorgeous “Lotus” pattern dial is absolutely stunning on the wrist.
For the man who prefers the understated elegance of a smaller watch combined with the timeless avant-garde design that is Cartier’s hallmark this fantastic Obus is guaranteed to fit the bill. Strap it on and see it enhance your entire style game just like that!