Bumping this thread! I too have GF interested in joining collecting with me and vintage Tanks are a great place to start, particularly the late 70s-80's "must de" era, with the gold plated cases and with manual movements.
Have started some research on this, and recently purchased The Cartier Tank book by Franco Cologni, which is ok, but no where near as definitive as Moonwatch Only.
Its a confusing topic, as for a long time Cartier operated as three seperate businesses, all with their own versions of Tank. There were a wide range of different movements, ranging from Audemars Piguet, Vacheron Constantin, ETA and Jaguer Le Coultre. The most valuable movements are European Watch and Clock Co which was actually a collaboration set up by Cartier and Le Coultre to make movements for Cartier. There isn't a standard set of caseback markings either, with french tanks often only having a serial number on the back to allow for engraving (eg Jackie Kennedy's Tank Normale).
Probably the only definitive thing to go by is the hallmarks; which were a requirement to add by law, eg 18k gold watches made in France will have a small Eagle's head stamp, silver watches made in Switzerland will have the stamp of a duck.
Gold plated tanks didn't appear unitl the early/mid 70's, first as gold plated brass, then later as gold plated Silver (marked ARGENT) on the back. I reckon both of these are pre "Must De Cartier" gold-plated brass models, probably from sometime between 1973-1976. There's been some mention of Cartier New York releasing gold plated Tanks as part of an American Express promotion, and also that the sales success of brass/gold plated New York Tanks inspired Cartier to go wide with a gold-plated launch once the NY, Paris and London businesses were reunited into Cartier International.
To confuse the issue even more, I own a very early ARGENT 925 silver/gold-plated tank that just has the standard "CARTIER" in capitals on the face like the one above, instead of "Must De Cartier" on it. I had thought it a re-dial until I got Franco's book and read they released them just before they did the burgundy "Must De Cartier" version without tracks and roman numerals.
For a watch that some would say inspired the very notion of the wrist watch, I'm surprised at how under the radar they are with serious collectors. Anyway good luck. There's still a big gap in knowledge on these watches. I really wish there was the same kind of scholarship online for these as there is for Speedys and Subs.
Not quite. Something like these. I'm told both are 1960's (from the introductory Louis Tank model that began in the 60's) but having a hard time verifying, and wonder whether they used both the print-style font (as in the first example) and the cursive font (as in the second example) concurrently in that era. Any insight is appreciated!
