cartier chinoise

Hope you all had a nice and relaxing Turkey Day….now back to watches! ?After a strong showing by Cartier at SIHH 2010 (see them all here), I am excited to see what will come out of the ambitious new “manufacture” in 2011. ?At least one of the watches to be presented at the SIHH 2011 in Geneva will be the new “Calibre de Cartier Astrotourbillon” you see below. ? The “Calibre de Cartier” collection made its debut last year with a couple of very nice base models – you can view my Jan 2010 introduction and follow up thoughts on the Calibre de Cartier for more details. ?You may also recall that the manual wind ‘Calibre 9451 MC Astrotourbillon’ movement likewise made its debut last year, except in a different model – the slightly more refined and elegant “Rotonde de Cartier”.So what all this basically means is that Cartier is putting the Astrotourbillon (aka “Calibre 9451 MC”) movement into the Calibre de Cartier case. ?With an impressive and very masculine looking watch being the end result. ?Scroll down for more details and comparisons.

SIHH 2010: Rotonde de Cartier Flying Tourbillon SkeletonRichemont’s core brand Cartier is going to unveil its new Rotonde de Cartier Flying Tourbillon Skeleton watch at the upcoming SIHH 2010 trade show that starts on 18 January 2010.Besides an obvious flying tourbillon, there is even more interesting complication. As you can see on the photos, the watch’s exclusive Cartier Caliber 9455 MC hand-wound movement rests inside the skeletonized dial.The dial, which is machined out of a solid chunk of metal and is about four or five millimeters thick, dwarves the visible parts of the movement.Trying to make the watch as legible as possible, Cartier’s designers added a number of “spokes” between the inner and outer parts of the dial to serve as hour indices. However, that was a terrible mistake. Every “spoke” is made in the same style as Roman numeral “I”, so at 12 o’clock, we now see an impossible number of IXIV, instead of XII.Well, that is, perhaps, watch’s only problem, since it leaves an impression of a very well-balanced job. Even the winding crown with its blue jewel cabochon looks pretty much in place here.Cartier plans to limit Rotonde de Cartier Flying Tourbillon Skeleton watch’s production at only 100 watches significantly increasing its future value on collector’s market.