Watch of the Day · 2026-07-28 · from the archive

Cartier Tortue Minute Repeater

Ref. Tortue Minute Repeater · 18k Yellow Gold — one documented result from the 1,156-lot MostExpensiveWatches auction record, featured today.

Documented result
$640,500
Antiquorum Geneva · 2004
Cartier in the corpus
65 documented results · record $2,028,800 (2026)

Dating to 1928, this example is recognized as the first known Cartier minute repeater, featuring a movement manufactured by the European Watch & Clock Co.

This 1928 Cartier Tortue Minute Repeater in 18k yellow gold sold for $640,500 at Antiquorum Geneva in 2004. It is recognized as the first known Cartier minute repeater, featuring a movement by the European Watch & Clock Co. Among 65 documented Cartier results, including a $2,028,800 record for a Crash in 2026, this sale matters to collectors as the documented origin of the brand’s minute repeater production.

Full lot record & sources All Cartier results The Grail Index

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About this series

Every day MostExpensiveWatches features one documented auction result from its comp corpus — hammer prices with primary sources, the record layer behind the Grail Index and the daily Price Index. Machine-readable: /data/watch-of-the-day.json. Cite as “MostExpensiveWatches Watch of the Day”.

Compiled: 2026-07-28T00:15:18.013809+00:00