Here at SwissWatchExpo, we love the Cartier Santos Dumont it's one of the oldest watches
one of the first watches ever produced and this modern version that Cartier
just came out with in 2022 is one of the neatest iterations of it that we've ever seen coming up.
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So in 2022 Cartier came out with a version of the Santos Dumont that were in three different
versions that were very limited in production and they all featured some lacquer now the
Santos Dumont was invented by Louis Cartier back in 1904 for his friend Alberto Santos Dumont who
was a Brazilian Aviator worldwide crazy famous kind of guy because he flew his aircraft right
down the drag in Paris for the world to see where the Wright Brothers had kind of kept their flight
secretive they were trying to figure out a way to make some money off of flight and airlines
and you know who knows what they were thinking in their minds but Alberto Santos Dumont did it
publicly earlier than the Wright brothers did so for a lot of the world if you ask them who was
first in flight they'll say Alberto Santos Dumont interesting guy there's a book out there that I
read called On Wings Of Madness that's about how this is he's one of those guys that was so crazy
smart that he kind of went crazy at the end of his life and but it's a really interesting story so we
recommend that if you're a real fan of the Santos Dumont watch but the Santos Dumont Not only was it
therefore considered like the first aviator watch the first modern wristwatch but it is something
that is just steeped through the DNA of Cartier and when you look at their entire line you see
the same square shape the screw heads exposed on the bezel that represent present some of the
rivets on the Santos Dumont aircraft over and over you'll see these cues but it's really interesting
how they will freshen up the line they'll change something about it and come up with something that
makes it look completely fresh and when we look at this one it has a stainless steel watch with black
lacquer though the series that they came out with in 2022 there were 250 pieces in rose gold with
a cream lacquer and 150 pieces in Platinum with the burgundy lacquer but this one gives the best
contrast of the three and the stainless steel this is the best one to me and what's interesting about
it is that it's not like a completely blacked out watch that has ADLC or a PVD coating or something
like that you can see that there's a lot of bright work still on this watch so what the lacquer does
it's not that it blacks out everything the way a blacked out watch would it's that it emphasizes
the the lines and the case and the design of the watch so really interesting the steel one was
not a limited edition to a certain number but here in January of 2024 it's no longer on the
Cartier website so it's not being sold anymore but we still have this absolutely meant one you
can see the strap doesn't even look like it's ever been on anyone's wrist so you know still available
here at SwissWatchExpo give us a call though and we'll see if if we still have it when you're ready
to make your purchase the size of the watch is called large now cardier they tend to use sort of
fuzzy terms like large and extra large and jumbo and small to describe their watches but they're
not really related to each other so when we look at this one the size on it it's 31.4mm wide it's
43.5 lug to Lug but only 7.3 thick the movement in it it's the 430 MC so it's an in-house handcrafted
manufacture caliber movement Cartier is part of the Richmont group which also owns Piaget
the movement is based on one of the ultra thin handwound mechanical movements from Piaget but
I love the the design of the watch when you're looking at it of course it's a sapphire crystal
it's water resistant to 30 meter so you don't have to worry about it getting splashed if you get in
the rain or accidentally put your hand under the faucet but it is a handwound mechanical movement
it's got a power reserve of about 38 hours no secondhand no date it just does what it's supposed
to hours and second hours and minutes that's all you need the dial has a textured section in the
center and then uh the applied numerals with a railway track around the edge printed so there's
really not much else to say about the watch as far as the design goes one thing I like is that it has
the Cartier ardillon C Tang buckle on the back we have the Santos Dumont signature and so that
really sets it up for success when you look at the watch even though card calls at large it's not a
really big watch but at the same time it wears probably more like about a 35 or 36 millimeter
round watch because Square watches just in general they cover more area than a round watch does so
it's not a tiny watch it's certainly not like the the tank watches of yesteryear that were really
small when you look at this one on the wrist I think that it really goes almost even dressier
than the the gold Santos Dumont or or certainly the steel Santos Dumont that doesn't have any
lacquer on it beautiful watch can't recommend it more highly Penny and I talked about that
you have to see it to believe it the pictures on the website don't really show this Sparkle that
you get from the bright work on it and definitely a watch that I didn't think I was going to like
when I just saw it on the Cartier website in 2022 but seeing it now in person it's a real winner.