In the current Privée collection, Cartier brought back classics including the Tank Chinoise, the Asymétrique and the Cloche. From the original CPCP collection, Cartier Professional Replica launched new versions of such iconic watches as the Tank à Guichets and the Tank Cintrée — and it also produced a new version of one of its rarest and most collectible watches, the Tortue Monopoussoir (Monopusher) chronograph.
The Tortue case was one of Cartier’s earliest watch case designs. The name means “Tortoise” and the Tortue case does indeed resemble a highly-stylized tortoise shell. In addition to the Tortue monopusher, Cartier Replica Swiss Movement also produced a Tank monopusher chronograph in 1935, but the Tortue is probably the one you’re aware of, if you’re aware of vintage Cartier monopusher chronographs at all.
The monopusher design is, as they say, just what it says on the tin: a chronograph in which the start, stop, and reset-to-zero functions are all handled through a single pusher. In the case of the Tortue Monopoussoir, the crown functions as the chronograph actuator.
The Tortue Monopoussoir is an extremely elegant take on the chronograph complication, with no extra external pushers to break up the silhouette, though at the time it debuted, the Replica Watches Swiss Movement two pusher chronograph, with one pusher for start, stop, and restart, and a second for reset-to-zero, was still in the future.
Leon Breitling registered the first patent for a two-pusher chronograph in 1923, with the reset pusher on the same axis as the crown, but the modern version with one pusher at 2 o’clock and one at 4 o’clock wasn’t patented — again, by Breitling — until 1934.
We gave them the idea to remake the chrono-monopoussoir Tortue… the movement is relatively simple, it didn’t pose any particular problems, it just took a little time to adapt to achieving the calibers that corresponded to Cartier Replica Watches Lowest Prices watchmaking standards. The biggest difficulty was to get Cartier’s technicians to understand that they had to have less security on the casing to match the spirit of the original watch and avoid creating a monster!”
Although it was larger than the original; at launch, 45mm x 35mm, compared to 35mm x 26mm for the model from the 1920s. The Tortue case is not as elegantly diminutive as some of the Tanks or the smaller Santos models, but the CPCP version’s much more in line with modern tastes.
The monopusher chronograph is, I suppose, obsolete from a technical standpoint — it’s undoubtedly an advance to be able to use one pusher for starting and stopping and a second for resetting. But there is an elegance to the monopusher design which no two-pusher chronograph can quite equal, if you ask me.
This is not to say there aren’t very beautiful and very elegant two pusher chronographs; even a cursory glance at Patek’s history will reveal many, but the monopusher chronograph’s clean lines are hard to beat. In the case of this particular watch, you get something extra. The Cartier Replica Watches Discount Forum white gold case is set with brilliant-cut round diamonds, and on the lugs as well, giving the watch even more of a Roaring Twenties sense of opulent and assured luxury.
The Cheap Cartier Replica for many of us is primarily a technical complication, and with good reason. Over its history it has been used in everything from motorsports to air navigation, to timing for crewed space missions, and it’s synonymous as a complication with technically oriented companies like Omega and Breitling.