Now You Can See the World's Coolest Cartier Watches in One Room

For 100 years, the Cartier Tank has been one of the few stalwarts of the watch world To put the watch's unfathomable staying power into context, consider that Louis Cartier designed the watch in 1917-Rolex was only officially incorporated as a company two years earlier Cartier's sharp-edged square watch was inspired by an overhead photograph he saw of a Renault FT-17, a boxy tank used in World War I.

But something unexpected happened in translating war machine to watch: "It's about beauty," says Cartier collector and dealer Harry Fane Beauty is the word Fane uses most when describing his upcoming exhibit of Cartier Tank watches at Dover Street Market's Los Angeles location Nearly all the watches were made before or during the 1960s and are meant to take the viewer's hand with a velvet glove and guide it back to "An age when people wore elegant clothes, women were very beautifully dressed, men were very elegant," says Fane.

These are examples like the Tank finished in 1942-"The height of the Second World War," Fane notes-with a small subdial and gold indices where the watch would typically feature Roman numerals While any very old watch with its original parts is a remarkable discovery, collectors are less likely to find them in a Cartier. . Source