Leather strap on Cartier Santos Galbee

Hello guys, like to check if anyone has any experience fitting a leather strap onto a neo vintage Cartier Santos. Managed to get a watch head only and am wondering what I can do to get around this.

So far I've seen only one on a strap and was told that there are two sets of lug holes for some reason. My guess is that a watchmaker has separately drilled another set of holes onto the existing ones, since the existing lug holes are so far deep in and are pretty much impossible to fit a strap in. (My watchmaker also suggested the same)

Since the vintage Cartier Dumont models have skyrocketed I was wondering if you could actually create a budget Dumont with a Santos Galbee

I've seen a few of the Santos Galbee models with straps here and there, but it's certainly rare. If you don't want to drill extra holes, it sounds like you may be able to get it to work if you use curved spring bars, per this post on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BYtX558BsF4/

Thanks for the kind advice! Probably has to be bent really outward for that to work since the lug holes are so deep in.
Nevertheless I'll give that a try 😁

Give it a try and post some pics if you get it to work! I’m curious (and I’m sure others will be in the future) of how it will turn out.