BY JOVAN KRSTEVSKI
The Santos Dumont line of watches by Cartier are steeped in history. In 1904, pilot Alberto Santos-Dumont requested a wristwatch from Louis Cartier, and one of the inaugural wristwatches was born. Despite the fact that the Santos-Dumont was built in 1904, it was not available to the public until 1911.
This model has been manufactured in limited editions ever since, mainly in platinum with a leather strap and deployant buckle. Then in contemporary times and specifically in 2019, Cartier introduced the Santos Dumont line of watches which had quartz movements. Just a year later Cartier released mechanical but limited editions of the Santos Dumont line of watches. Since then, Santos Dumont have become largely the pillars of the Cartier timepiece collection. The classic timepiece is now making a return with a various new colors. To be specific the colors are Burgundy, rose gold, platinum, beige, black, and steel which are among the new variants. All of the variants are painted with a thin coating of lacquer, smoothed, and polished.
The platinum model which is in burgundy color, has a white dial and comes with a burgundy color strap. It’s limited to 150 pieces. The gold variant is limited to 250 pieces, it comes on a dark green strap. The steel and black variant is the only one which is a regular production model, adhering to the black theme of this variant, it has black dial and it comes on a black alligator leather strap. Each model has narrow applied Roman numerals on the dial which extend to the outer periphery. The case is rather large with dimensions of 43.5mm x 7.3mm diameter and height respectively. The numerals or the hands offer no lume.
Ticking inside the case is Cartier’s caliber 43 MC, which is a manual winding movement featuring hours, minutes and seconds. It beats at 21,600 vibrations per hour and has 38 hours of power reserve. The platinum model has an MSRP of €16,000, while gold and steel are priced at €12,000 and €5,100 respectively. All of the models will be available in the November of this year. Visit Cartier here.
