Cartier Tortue Monopoussoir Chronograph CPCP

Though Cartier produced many fine mechanical watches during its 170-year history, by the mid-1990s, the brand was known primarily as a maker of quartz watches. In an effort to rejuvenate its status as a premier manufacture, in 1998 Cartier launched the Collection Privée Cartier Paris, or 'CPCP,' for short. The Collection Privée resurrected classic wristwatch designs from the Cartier archives and utilized high-grade mechanical movements from the likes of Piaget, Jaeger-LeCoultre, and Girard-Perregaux.  This particular watch, the Tortue Monopusher (or, pardon our French, the Monopoussoir), uses a case design Cartier conceived in the 1920s — the Tortue, or "tortoise." While their Tank collections had a number of varying case shapes (Française, Louis, Cintrée or Basculante, just to name a few), the Tortue is a different look entirely. Its sensuous curves lent itself well to use in many different watches, from time-only to complicated references, including the original monopusher chronograph from 1928.  When Cartier released the first-series of the Collection Privée 1998, the Tortue Monopusher was among the debut models. In keeping with the spirit of collaboration that Cartier had always employed in supplying calibres for its watches, the brand relied on an outside party for the movement of the Monopusher. Rather than Cartier's Richemont stablemate, JLC, the brand entrusted a company called THA Èbauche. Who might that be, you wonder? None other than Vianney Halter, François-Paul Journe, and Denis Flagolet, who would later go on to form De Bethune. While we're not certain of Journe's hand in developing the Calibre 045MC more specifically, his role in THA Èbauche is doubtless. Flagolet, for his part, later used the calibre in a monopusher designed for De Bethune, cementing the Tortue Monopusher's place among the greats of haute horlogerie and giving it just that little bit of credit among fans of independent watchmakers, for good measure. The byword of the Tortue Monopusher is elegance, from the curves of the case to the incredible guilloché dial and blued steel hands. The movement, glimpsed through a sapphire exhibition case back, is a work of art in and of itself, beautifully finished to the highest order. And though a chronograph by its nature is meant for use in sports timing, the slim profile of the case — and the fact that the movement relies on a single pusher to operate it — makes it perhaps the only chronograph that looks best when peeking out from under the cuff of a bespoke suit.  Housed in a 35mm 18K white gold Tortue case with a sapphire-set crown, a sapphire crystal, and a sumptuous, smooth bezel, it features a gorgeous silver guilloché dial with an outer 1/5th-seconds track, stylized 'Roman' numeral indices, a dual-register chronograph layout with 30-minute and running-seconds registers, and a blued steel 'Breguet' handset. Beautifully finished and signed 'Cartier Paris,' it is, quite simply, a collector's dream.  Powered by the aforementioned Calibre 045MC hand-wound movement and paired to a signed blue alligator leather strap with a white gold deployant clasp, it comes with its service papers from 2024 detailing a complete overhaul by Cartier in Canada. Made in a run of just a few-hundred pieces, this exquisite timepiece represents the efforts of some of the best and brightest minds in contemporary watchmaking. If that sort of thing rings your bell, then give us a call!