So what is this voluptuous wonder?
In 1996 Cartier replica did a bunch of stuff to celebrate its 150th anniversary. Most notably, Antiquorum hosted an auction, “The Magical Art of Cartier”, featuring some 600+ Cartier lots (check them all out here2, it’s wild). In conjunction with that, The House commissioned some timepieces, often with different dials to make them unique. Among those were a handful of luxury fake Cartier Cloches (“bell” in French) in platinum. Some of these timepieces were sold via the auction, while others were sold privately.
The example up for sale at Monaco was originally sold privately back in 1996. It’s about as classic as it gets for Swiss made replica Cartier, with Roman numerals, an outer minute track, and Breguet hands. This particular watch is also featured in Patrizzi’s White-Cartier-Bianco, the tome that costs more than your average Cartier baby spoon.
If you look at The Magical Art of Cartier catalog, you’ll see two other luxury fake Cartier Cloches in platinum with unique dials. One has “Cartier Paris” scattered around the dial instead of numerals, and another has bold Roman numerals, but no minute track, setting it apart from the example for sale in Monaco.
Interestingly, both of these examples sold for about $36k at Antiquorum, and that was back in 1996. Monaco Legends places the estimate for this example at €50k-100k. Over the past couple of years, we’ve thought of The House as this undeniable rocketship, but if this lot lands in the middle of its estimate, that imputes a mere 2x return on these platinum Cloches across 25 years. Not exactly significant (more like results you’d expect from a “world-class” hedge fund). Instead of a rocketship, the Cartier market has been more like a roller coaster over the past generation or two.
One more significant Cloche from 1996. Of course, this one from the wrist of John Goldberger. Again, it’s a platinum Cartier Cloche copy with white dial, but this one’s got Arabic numerals. Goldberger explains that it’s one of two perfect replica watches with this dial.