Cartier Tank À Guichets: Honoring An Unusually Progressive And Rightfully Rare Tank
7 min read
If the Cartier Tank was inspired by a French military tank, then the Tank à Guichets is its most authentic interpretation. To be honest, how many tanks do you know of that come with brittle glass armor. If I guessed it right - absolutely none. In the Tank à Guichets, the tank inspiration extends beyond the brancards, as the part that would usually be the dial is obscured, or rather shielded, by bare metal. And no, there isn’t any swivelling mechanism to bring the true watch face into sight. Herein lies the second factor of peculiarity, at least for its time, of the piece - a digital jumping hour display mechanism. Everything to perceive on a Tank à Guichets, which exactly feels like one solid piece of metal, is limited to two petite apertures: one for the display of minutes and one dedicated to showcase the jumping hours. These tiny windows give the watch its name (Guichets is French for windows). This is a watch with a hefty metallurgical oddity being a strange prestige just because there’s too much metal to view. If you observe carefully, this feels like a better “Polo watch” than you know what. Regardless, in many ways, the Cartier Tank à Guichets is the most distinct exception among all Tanks from the past or present, and that’s an epoch extending more than 100 years. It’s an exception in rarity terms as well.
Honest To Name But Not To Tradition
The Cartier Tank à Guichets bears irrefutable resemblance with a tank and the how of it is already established. But in an age when the first Tank à Guichets appeared, that was in 1928, the digital display of hours via a jumping mechanism was rare. An atypical time-telling display, the Tank à Guichets’ jumping hour mechanism is a significant departure from the traditional telling of time by means of hands. It relies on a disc to display the exact correct hour for the entire duration of that hour before making an instantaneous jump to the next. This novelty in time display is realized by a certain degree of energy build-up over a course of 60 minutes to instantaneously release the same at the passage of those 60 minutes, making the jump possible. Although the mechanical realizations of the concept are plenty, that’s all the tech you need to know for the sake of a Tank à Guichets. Oh, there’s one more - the minutes. Well, as the watch does away with traditional hands, the minutes too are digitally displayed via a slow-moving disc visible through the bottom aperture. For the seconds - not needed, so don’t exist.
Does the quirky aside of a no-hand watch merit the Tank à Guichets as revolutionary. Yes! When it came around in 1928, the concept of a “wristwatch” in general wasn’t something that had been established or accepted for around many decades. It was still fresh, novel and thus lent ample scopes to reinvention through nuances. Now, a wristwatch with a jumping hour disc displaying time digitally, that’s bona fide avant-garde for the 1920s, although interest in timepieces with numeric displays was growing. While the initial production run of the Tank à Guichets isn’t documented to the exact number, it definitely is known to be strictly limited. The follow-up releases, of which there were three, didn’t either produce a hefty volume of the Tank à Guichets. Hence, the rarified existence of the watch sort of establishes it as a horological unicorn. Owing to its scarcity and an insignificant total volume for a span only a few years shy of a century, the Tank à Guichets isn’t the Tank everyone knows. Fact, it even isn’t the Cartier everyone knows. While this all-metal oddball from Cartier doesn’t entail a grail-worthy entice, the total mystique surrounding the rare timepiece sure makes it holy in many regards. If you’re into collecting Art Deco evocative avant-garde, the Tank à Guichets is a veritable must-have on every level.
A Legitimate Horological Rarity
Horological scarcity is no myth. There has been a time in watchmaking history where mass-volume production literally didn’t exist and the total product yield relied on the available workforce and material resources. This is the reason why true horological rarity surfaces from an early era. This era goes well before the mid-80s introduction of CAD/CAM. The relevancy of Cartier’s low quantity production melded with higher artisanal execution, gave birth to some rare examples in the era that predates the 1950s. The Tank à Guichets, of which there are speculated to be not more than 400 in total production volume, legitimately leads the scarcity scores. Despite production of the model shared across periods, of both the previous and current centuries, the Tank à Guichets has maintained unfeigned dearth and deficiency in numbers.
A Forward-Looking And Unusual Tank’s Evolution
When the Tank à Guichets was first introduced in 1928 with its crown at 12 o’clock, it found its genesis as a limited edition for a VVIP clientele, much like the Crash. This mini-Zeitwerk, if I may call it that, could very likely be the opus of a special order and hence remains coveted in that regard. Its treasured status in the inceptive era is validated by the kind of clientele it lured. It was a daily for Duke Ellington and a prized piece for the Maharaja of Patiala. Gary Cooper too was known to own one. A 1931 example of the Cartier Tank à Guichets with the crown at 3 o’clock was offered as Lot 31. at the 2017’s Phillips Winning Icons auction that featured the record-breaking Rolex “Paul Newman” Daytona. The Cartier fetched a handsome $131,250 at the iconic auction.
Ever since its inaugural series, the Tank à Guichets has been strictly limited in production. Following the originals, a total of six Tank à Guichets were released in 1996. Of these six, each retaining the 12 o’clock crown placement, three were in 18-karat yellow gold and three in platinum. Throughout this early evolutionary progression of the model, Cartier handsomely played around the Tank à Guichets’ layout as well as the form of the apertures. The minute aperture appeared either at the 12 or 6 o’clock positions.
The following year in 1997, Cartier commemorated its 150th anniversary by releasing the Tank à Guichets in platinum as a limited edition of only 150 pieces. With these releases for a wider watch market, Cartier adopted a consistent layout with all the examples featuring the crown at 3 o’clock on their 26mm x 37mm cases. Of the earlier examples, crown placement alternated between 12 and 3 o’clock positions. These anniversary-special platinum models bore the Cal. 9752MC manual-winding movement based on a Piaget ébauche. Their complex mechanism is applaud-worthy, for greater precision and energy is required to make the hour disc “jump” instantaneously at the exact passage of 60 minutes. Along with their respective series numbers, these examples feature a special caseback engraving “1847-1997” below the “LC” logo. These platinum Tank à Guichets carry a “ruby” cabochon in the crown instead of the typical sapphire.
The final and the latest series of the Tank à Guichets’ releases came about in 2005 when it was offered as part of the Collection Privée Cartier Paris. 100 CPCP Tank à Guichets, even fewer than the earlier platinum version, were produced as part of the collection and all were in pink gold. Designated the Ref. 2817, the CPCP Tank à Guichets features a slightly larger crown than the 1997 platinum models and is set with a blue cabochon. This 2005 re-edition collection also celebrates the 150th anniversary of Cartier in 1997, with the caseback engraved “1847-1997.” The 19 jewel 9752MC mechanical jump hour movement created by Piaget for Cartier is housed within the 26mm x 37mm case.
In 2028, the Cartier Tank à Guichets will mark its centennial, a testament to a century of a dear horological idiosyncrasy. Though the grand celebration remains a few years distant, one wonders: will “La Maison” surprise with a Tank à Guichets release at the Watches and Wonders 2025?
A Collector’s Delicacy
The collector pursuit of a Cartier Tank opens a world of plentiful possibilities and a veritable expanse of designs. Should your quest lead you in the direction of a Cartier Tank, you might as well go for the variant that most resembles its namesake - the Tank à Guichets. It is the design where absolute Art Deco eccentricity is realized and stands furthest apart from its series’ siblings and also from the broader prominence attributed to vintage Cartiers. Despite a recent recalibration in collector adoration towards the Cartier Tank à Guichets, it has more than been an enclave of the select for nearly a century. For something with the technical gravitas of an early Zeitwerk, the circumstances of its opus endure in veiled wisdom. In certain ways, it necessitates a level of mystique so as to preserve its essence and elevate its sacredness, for it is undeniably holy.
Cover Image Source - A Collected Man.
