Cartier Orange Watches

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.

One of the most intriguing watches created by Cartier thus far is the new Ballon Bleu Tourbillon. The Ballon Bleu Tourbillon is Cartier's first that incorporates the brand's new 9452MC tourbillon movement, which bears the Geneva Seal hallmark. The 9452MC movement is mechanical with manual winding, it is comprised of 142 hand-finished parts and 19 jewels and has a power reserve is 50 hours.The Cartier Ballon Bleu gets its name from the sapphire cabochon crown which is incorporated into its rounded case and this version is no exception. It is crafted from 18K pink gold, and it measures 46mm across which makes it larger than even the Grand Modele Ballon Bleu which is only 42mm in diameter. The watch also features sapphire crystal on the face as well as the transparent case-back of the watch. The dial has a three-dimensional guilloche silvered look with sun-ray open-worked grid. The watch has Roman numeral markers and sword-shaped, blued-steel hands. The tourbillon carriage is positioned in an untraditional way so that appears to float freely above the dial adding to the already impressive design..