Cartier Tortue Perpetual Calendar CPCP 2666, 2005

Dealer description — S.Song Watches

The name Cartier needs no introduction. As one of the most influential and celebrated jewellery and watch brands of the last 100 years, it has always stood as a mark of luxury and desirability. Without taking away from its historical significance, I would say that when it comes to watches, Cartier has always been predominantly known as a ‘design’ brand rather than a pure watchmaking one, with stunningly iconic models such as the Tank, the Crash, and the Santos all regarded as important for their distinctive designs. In fact, to this day, it is these beautiful and unconventional designs that continue to attract collectors and allow Cartier to hold a unique position in the watch brand hierarchy that few others possess. As I have mentioned many times, the '90s were an unconventional and murky time for watch brands, having just emerged from the quartz crisis that decimated much of the industry. Brands were either experimenting like crazy or remaining strictly conservative, wary of the fact that they had just survived the equivalent of a nuclear bomb. The industry was slowly coming back, with consumers beginning to take an interest in mechanical watches again, and with this in mind, Cartier decided that it was time to improve its image as a true watchmaking brand. The result was the Collection Privée Cartier Paris, referred to simply as CPCP. The intention of CPCP was to establish a premier mechanical watchmaking division within Cartier, and looking back on it today, it was one of the best decisions the brand ever made. The philosophy was simple. CPCP took iconic models that were already loved by many and reproduced them with high-grade movements, working with bona fide watch manufactures such as Piaget, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Frédéric Piguet, Girard-Perregaux, and more. The easiest way to differentiate a CPCP watch was by its dial, with all but one model, the Tank Cintrée, featuring a ‘Cartier Paris’ inscription as an ode to the brand's heritage. The dials were always crafted from solid gold and often featured a strong hand-turned guilloché pattern. Here, I have a Cartier Tortue XL Perpetual Calendar, one of the rarer and more complicated pieces to emerge from the CPCP program. The Tortue was one of Cartier's earliest wristwatch designs and has always been an iconic shape for the brand. First introduced in 1912 by Louis Cartier, it was modelled after the shape of a tortoise, hence the name ‘Tortue’. This example is housed in an 18-carat rose gold case and features a white gold dial with Cartier's classic Roman numerals and guilloché design. A subtle signature found across many Collection Privée models was the small rosette guilloché in the centre of the dial, as seen on this example. Together with the perpetual calendar indications laid out in a classic four sub-dial configuration, the overall design remains remarkably legible and well proportioned despite the amount of information being displayed. Beyond its design, the Tortue Perpetual Calendar is also one of the pieces that best represents what CPCP was trying to achieve from a watchmaking perspective. While many watches within the collection were relatively simple time-only pieces, the perpetual calendar sat firmly at the more complicated end of the spectrum. Powering the watch is the automatic Cal. 9421 MC, based on a high-grade movement from Piaget and modified for Cartier with a perpetual calendar module. Capable of automatically accounting for the varying lengths of the months as well as leap years, the complication displays the day, date, month, leap year, and moon phase across the dial. It was an unusually complicated watch for Cartier at the time and, housed within one of the brand's most historic case designs, perfectly embodied the philosophy behind Collection Privée by combining classic Cartier design with serious mechanical watchmaking. While all Cartier Collection Privée watches came in their special CPCP-marked boxes, this Tortue Perpetual Calendar is made even more special by the inclusion of the almost never-seen CPCP watch winder box. It is a minor detail, but one that the most ardent Cartier collectors will be sure to appreciate. Furthermore, this example comes with a Cartier Collection Privée pusher to set the calendar, another cool quirk that is rarely seen. The CPCP collection ran for 10 years between 1998 and 2008, and I can confidently say that it represents one of the most significant periods in Cartier's modern history. It's beautiful to see that Cartier was doing ‘reissues’ before they were even a thing, and doing them the right way by respecting the past while producing something that still felt modern. Not only that, but CPCP models were produced in truly limited numbers, with many having designated runs of just 50 to 100 pieces. For those within the Collection Privée that weren't strictly ‘limited’, it is estimated that only 250 to 300 pieces were made of each reference, making any CPCP watch out there truly special. Collectors are finally taking notice of this, and of Cartier in general as a brand worth collecting. With more knowledge available today, demand for Cartier has grown tremendously, and I only see it getting larger, especially for important references such as those from the CPCP line.