Watches & Wonders 2025: The Return Of The Tank à Guichets, One Of The Greatest Tanks Of All Time
A classic from Cartier’s greatest decade is back in the Privé Collection.
The Cartier Tank à Guichets is one of the best known and, at least in its original incarnation, one of the most enigmatic of all Cartier Tank models. The à Guichets (“guichet” literally means, “ticket window” and thus, a small aperture) is first listed in Cartier’s catalog in 1928 and it’s not known how many of the original series were made; in 1928, Cartier only produced 68 Tank watches of any kind, and, as a rule, watches were made to order and exhibit variations from watch to watch consistent with a hand-made product. Originals appear at auction exceedingly rarely; cartier_signature on Instagram has published a list, which consists of just five original models sold at auction between 1998 and 2024. Original models are thus rarely encountered and essentially impossible to collect in any meaningful way – the à Guichets was a special order model through the 1930s and did not return to production at Cartier until 1996.
As you can see, even in the period 1928-1929 (the images are from the original edition of Franco Cologni’s book, “Cartier: The Tank Watch”) there was considerable variation in crown position and also in dial layout; with the hour window variously plain or slightly ornate and with the dragging minutes display in various locations as well. There even seems to have been a model, which I have never seen pictured anywhere else, with a conventional small seconds and minute hand, and with a jumping hours display at 12:00. Perhaps that particular watch is in Cartier’s archives as it was photographed for the book, which was published by Flammarion in 1998 (the introduction says that the book is a comprehensive catalog of Tank watches “up to the present day,” which is now almost thirty years ago).
In 1996, Cartier released six à Guichets with the crown at 12:00 (original series models exist with both 12:00 and 3:00 crown positions; an example of the latter, thought to have been produced in 1931, hammered at Phillips last year for CHF 406,400). Three were in yellow gold, and three in platinum; the next year, in 1997, Cartier produced 150 pieces in platinum. These all had crowns at 3:00, and used Piaget movements. The last series of à Guichets produced until this year, were made for the Collection Privée Cartier Paris, in 2007; these were all in pink gold and 100 were made. The total therefore of à Guichets watches produced after the original models launched in 1928, is 256 pieces; if some of the guesstimates are reasonably accurate – less than 400, is the figure usually cited – then original models are very few and far between, with less than 150 total (maybe a lot less; nobody really knows).
It is in any of its incarnations, a watch for the soigné individual … like Duke Ellington.
This year, Cartier has put the à Guichets back into production in the Privé Collection, which is a vehicle for relaunching modern production variants on classic Cartier designs; recent re-editions include the Tortue and Tortue Monopoussoir Chronograph, and the Tank Normale (the Privé Collection is distinct from the CPCP watches, with the Privé Collection proper having gotten started with the Crash Skeleton). The new à Guichets watches come in four variants, all with crowns at 12:00. As you can imagine fans of the model have strong feelings about the crown position; there is a sizable segment of the Cartier collector community which feels that the 12:00 position is the more authentic and also the purest from a design standpoint; owners of variants with crowns at 3:00 may feel that such connoisseurs are killjoys … well, that’s collecting for you. There seems to be an impression among some collectors and watch writers that the original version was 12:00 crown-only but as you can see that’s a misconception and it really comes down to personal taste rather than fidelity to an original, since as far as we know there was no one “original” model anyway.
I personally think the watch looks cleaner with the crown at 12:00, although I would be just as happy with one at the 3:00 position. The original à Guichets came out when digital display wristwatches and pocket watches were having something of a vogue, with the display seen as more modern and certainly, the bold use of empty space on the front of the à Guichets seems very much a part of the Art Deco rejection of some of the more florid excesses of the preceding Art Nouveau movement.
These are almost perfect reproductions of the original à Guichets models, albeit with modern movements and materials. The original watches per the Cologni book came in 8 ligne and 10 ligne models – the ligne is an old French unit of measurement which is still used today in the watch industry; 8 lignes is about 18mm and 10, about 22.5; Phillips says that the one they had last year, from 1931, had a case measuring 22mm x 30mm so presumably that was one of the 10 ligne cases. The new à Guichets watches all measure 24.8mm x 37.6mm x 6mm, so they’re very slightly larger than the original 10 ligne models, but with elongated proportions more akin to the smaller but more rectangular 8 ligne models.
Of the four watches, three are limited production but not, officially, limited editions. If you are looking for something with fidelity to the original you can’t go wrong with any of the three models; in 1928 Cartier was already making the à Guichets in both gold and platinum.
The platinum model, it must be said, does have a certain distinctive appeal to it. For one thing, Cartier is very much identified with the white metal and for another, the extra density of platinum (platinum is about 11 per cent denser than gold, which is not a lot but enough to be something you can feel right away) gives the new à Guichets, which is a relatively small, slim, and elegant watch, a little extra heft. Cartier in gold is wonderful but Cartier in platinum just feels so, you know, comme il faut, if I may deploy some of my never great and now very rusty French. You may notice that the numbers and minute track on the platinum model are red – typically Cartier watches have a blue cabochon and platinum models, a red one but since a cabochon on the crown of an à Guichets would be a bit awkward, Cartier has gone with red for the dial instead.
There is one more model which is a limited edition, and this is what Cartier is calling the “Oblique” model, for reasons which are immediately apparent.
Over at Monochrome, Brice Goulard has written that “It’s clearly unconventional, different (not to mention slightly disturbing for someone like me with a symmetry OCD)” and it would undoubtedly take some getting used to. Some folks have been describing this as a “driver’s watch” orientation and although at first blush that might seem reasonable, worn on the left wrist with the hour aperture at the top, the hour is actually upside down which hardly seems a good user interface (to say nothing of the fact that any à Guichets is not exactly designed to offer instant read-off of the time when you’re trying to keep your eye on the road). Instead I think that this is a deliberate exercise in a certain kind of design whimsy, akin to, if less perverse, than the Cartier Santos Dumont Rewind, which has hands that run backwards and which came out last year.
It is certainly a divisive design, in a mild way (mild in comparison with, say, the current divisiveness of current political discourse, about which the less said the better) but boy, I would finding choosing between this one and any of the other three a very tough call. The deliberate asymmetry seems to fly in the face of the cool urbanity of the à Guichets design but on the other hand, this is from the company that gave us the Crash, and pushing some of the limits of its own designs is an inherent part of Cartier’s character … I’d almost certainly choose the Oblique and I would almost certainly wonder if I’d made the right decision. Second guessing your own purchase is of course an inherent part of watch collecting, though.
The à Guichets is a deliberately austere watch, which also may not be for everyone; one comment I’ve seen since the watch launched was to the effect that the commenter would not want to wear such an expensive Cartier that did not have Cartier branding of some sort. This is understandable but of course, any such addition would destroy the entire point of the design.
We’ve all been waiting for so long for the à Guichets to return and the rumors of its reappearance have been so frequent that you might think it anticlimactic to see the watches in person. I can happily report that this is not the case. The wow factor when you handle one and have it on is immediate and if you are susceptible to falling head over heels in love with a watch redolent of the charm of the Deco era, and that period of a dozen or so years when Louis Cartier was designing one masterpiece after another, all of which remain classics of modern watch design, you are going to find the à Guichets models irresistible. There is nothing like the intellectual and spiritual elevation you can experience from complicated watchmaking, but like the original Tank itself, the à Guichets requires nothing else to make it an example of how the mastery of a few essential details can create a masterpiece in watch design.
The Cartier Tank à Guichets: cases, 24.8mm x 37.6mm x 6mm, in yellow gold, rose gold, or platinum. References, WGTA0234 (yellow gold), WGTA0235 (rose gold), WGTA0236 (platinum), WGTA0237 (platinum limited edition). Jumping hours, with dragging minutes; movement, hand-wound caliber 9755 MC. Prices, € 52,000 in rose or yellow gold; €60,000 in platinum (non limited version) and € 66,000 in platinum (limited version). The 1916 Company is proud to be an authorized retailer for Cartier.