What's It Like To Get Your Grail Watch And Live With It? The Story Of My Louis Cartier Tank

During Cartier's lifetime many other Tank models followed, each reaching legendary status, yet still never quite as legendary as the original Louis Cartier Tank Despite the fame of this particular model, Cartier has always been quite conservative with the versions in which the Louis Cartier Tank was available: it has only been available as a manual wind in either yellow gold or platinum, one size fits all, for decades With the introduction of quartz movements, Cartier also allowed one in the Louis Cartier Tank and even went so far as to add a date.

All those models didn't matter to me because the moment I had my friend's Louis Cartier Tank in my hand it became my grail watch The problem was that this wasn't just any Louis Cartier Tank, it was a platinum pre-CPCP Louis Cartier Tank While a yellow gold Louis Cartier Tank was already really, really stretching my budget, the platinum model was even more expensive - even though it significantly contributed to the understatement of the watch.

Although the first-generation Louis Cartier Tank watches featured movements by LeCoultre, Caliber 21 was only offered six years after the first Louis Cartier Tank was for sale. . Source