Cartier Tank Damage or Patina?

Patina is just a fancy name for damage.

Cheap watch with a damaged dial, pass.

yep. Those old Must de Cartier watches from the 70s were really cheaply made, with really poor quality dials and movements. When I searching for a Tank for my wife I came across several of these in vintage stores and thought they were fake because of the quality, but a little research showed me they are a dark part of Cartier history.

Hold out for a real Tank.

These were $200 or so fashion watches, and you paid a lot to have the Cartier name on the dial. Junk.

I have to agree. I see Must de Cartier models offered on here sometimes at eye watering 4 figure prices. These were the Cartier equivalent of Swatch back in the day. Well perhaps I exaggerate, they do use ETA movements amongst others so they aren't quite junk but Cartier's well deserved reputation for quality jewellery didn't always apply to its horological output over the years, particularly between 1975-1990. A similar timeframe in fact to when Omega rather lost their way somewhat...

I purchased a Tiffany labelled Tank made by Chopard at a local auction. This Chopard model 5054 came out at about the same time as the Must de Cartier Tank (mid 1970's). I serviced it myself and was very pleasantly surprised of the quality of the watch: 18k solid gold case, very nice (tiny) manual movement (based on an ETA 2512). It puts Must Cartier Tanks to shame. Additionally, it sold at a fraction of the cost of the Cartier of the same vintage. It's my wife favorite dress watch. I also found on ebay a replacement dial that has the more tank-standard dial if ever she would like a white-dial tank.