Cartier watch

[Trey]

Gentlemen:

I have a decent watch collection, but no Cartier's. I am considering a Panther. Your thoughts? I have a friend who sells Cartier and can likely get a good deal on a new one.

I recently inherited very old family watches and am enamored by them. Consequently, I am considering purchasing a vintage Cartier. If vintage, is there a particular time period that is "best" for Cartier - and Pathers - and is there a particularly good source for such?

Trey

[carl browne]

A vintage Panther would be very nice, would it have a leather or gold band?

What do you think of watches in general? Should they be big and have lots of dials, or thin and just tell the time?

Should your watch be yellow or white gold, steel, titanium, or something else?

Should the band be leather or metal?

If you could have only one watch, what would it be?

Would like very much to hear your opinions.

C

[Trey]

Gentlemen:

I am no expert, but here are my thoughts. Most of my watches are silver stainless/white gold/platinum because my "jewelry" (e.g. - wedding band, cufflinks, belt buckle) is silver. I far prefer simpler looking, understated quality watches, although I certainly appreciate seeing the innerworkings of fancy time pieces.

I prefer small watches to clunkier ones. I am often frustrated by having shirt sleeves not fit over even a modest sized Rolex despite telling my tailor to leave a little extra room for a watch. This is one reason I consider purchasing a Cartier. They seem less clunky and look elegant. Some find them too feminine. I do not. I probably prefer a vintge panther with a black or brown strap.

My personal preferences - I do not care for gold and silver mixed; I prefer white gold over yellow; I prefer simple, but elegant over fancy.

I have two watches that are so special to me that I could not "have only one watch" as Carl asks. The first - a simple silver stainless Rolex that my wife gave me as a wedding present. Enough said.

The second - my late grandfather's vintage yellow gold with brown lizard leather band Accutron is absolutely beautiful. It is 50 + years old. I replaced the well-worn gold band with the lizard skin band. The face has what appears to be slight water stains or moisture build up.

My local jeweler offered to clean the interior so as to remove these slight blemishes. He says "this will make it look new." I rebuff his offer because looking at the stains makes me wonder how they got there. Were they from his sweat associated with his aggrarian lifestyle? Were they a product of no air conditioning in the hot and humid southern U.S.? Is it damage from being in a wet trench in World War II for days? The watch, in perfect shape, probably has a street value of $10. To me it is priceless.

I am attending an opera tonight and will be in black tie. My watch of choice - a simple small Longines from the '30's with a black alligator strap. The watch has a silver case and black face with silver hands and four small diamonds at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock and nothing else for the other hours. I can find no one who can get it to tell correct time anymore, which brings up an interesting point.

Given the watch's beauty and in such settings (great company, black tie, beautiful lady on your arm), does one really care if one's watch keeps accurate time? Does one really want to look down in a beautiful evening in a beautiful setting, when one is about to order another round of libations, and see life ticking by? To see that in all too soon, it is midnight, your pumpkin has arrived, you promised the sitter you would be home by . . . . Sometimes it is better to simply relish the moment and let time be damned! Sometimes a beautiful watch (no matter how "beautiful" is defined - e.g. a cherished gift from your wife, a "worthless" stained time piece from a long dead hero, a beautiful timepiece that does not tell time, but whose purpose really is not to remind you what the hour is) is enough! Such are the special things in life.

Happy thoughts!

Trey

[storeynicholas]

I have given up on watches - or they have given up on me - broken, lost, worn out - I have the shells still but when I am lost for telling the time, these days, I recall the line from the Book of Solomon on the church clock at Rye, East Sussex: For our time is a very shadow that passeth away and, Trey, I think that you are right, we tend to forget time when the moment is sweet. So leave the watch at home tonight and get home when you do - having enjoyed the opera, of course!
NJS

[carl browne]

Very well said, Gentlemen!

Trey:

Get the Panther.

There are things I've wanted but never acquired, and things I've acquired that grieved me. But the first of these regrets is the deeper.

[storeynicholas]

But then there's the quote about there being "two tragedies in life: the first is to lose your heart's desire - and the other is to gain it." Put, I always think, rather nicely by Dorothy Parker - paraphrased as "You spend your whole time getting there and when you get there, you realize that there's no there, there.." - exceptionally, though, I think, if one doesn't expect unearthly perfection, there is a pretty good approximation of there if you really do want a great suit - a great ensemble, come to that, in a few hundred square yards of - well, this is called the London Lounge, after all....
NJS.

[Trey]

Carl -

I will indeed - if for no other reason than to pass it down to my sons one day. They love looking at my watches, cufflinks, etc.

Trey

[carl browne]

I have daughters.


But they actually wear my watches, cufflinks etc.


Seems like my things are sufficiently unfashionably fashionable to be of interest to teen aged girls.

[JDelage]

If I may make a suggestion, the Cartier Tank Americaine in white gold is quite simply one of the most elegant watches ever designed, in my humble opinion.