Hello watchfam! We know each other on Instagram for years, and I’m really grateful for the support you’ve given and the interest you’ve shown up till now. From now on, at www.watchmanias.com, we shall deliver you the latest news from the watch world, introductions, articles and reviews, that is, all the contents prepared by myself who has created @watchmania account and by some of my friends with whom I’ve met by courtesy of the watch world. And our original starting point, my Instagram account, shall be in full flow.
Like most of us, my interest in timepieces goes back a long way. Over the years, I’ve used vintage timepieces, modern watches, dress watches, chronographs, divers, pilot watches, etc., of all classes and price levels. Many of them have been part of my collection and then went out (!), some of them were the watches that were given to me, for a while, to review and have a user experience with them.
In any case, I got always excited very much, when I first met with a watch I’ve never seen alive before. It has been always a great pleasure to take it into my hands and touch it, and adjust the time and put it on my wrist. Possibly, this infatuation has reached the people through Instagram and allowed me to meet more than half a million followers.
If we come to the story of Cartier from my point of view; to tell the truth, even though some find it feminine or those who have become newly acquainted with the horology world perceive it as a jeweler, I’ve always liked Cartier. I think that they have been manufacturing timepieces for true gentlemen and gentlewomen, and that they are a ‘Maison’ that improved in years, while they still keep alive that glorious and noble air in the early 1900s. As all afficionados know, one of the brands that had initiated the present watch industry is Cartier. It was Cartier who ensured the wrist watches to become a part of the daily life by crafting a wrist watch in its true sense, though there had been some brands that produced wrist watches before.
Source: Nick Walsh, Cartier Collection
They have been very much admired with the models they have launched in recent years and they reached out to a larger mass of people. Although there’ve been some flying high exceptions like Richard Mille and MB&F coming to my mind at first, many brands in the world of horology have been trying to reach their target group by emphasizing the pride they take in their past and forging a link with their old models.
When it comes to Cartier, we can talk about both a past deserving a just pride and a strong tie forged with the old models, thanks to the persons especially like @george.cramer and @goldberger. Particularly, Mr. Cramer documents for us the entire Cartier corpus with splendid visuals. Obviously, the idea of buying a Cartier one day is likely to appear at a corner of the brains of watch lovers looking at these two accounts I’ve mentioned. Of course, my love for Cartier goes back much earlier than the start of the Instagram adventures of Mr. Cramer and Mr. Goldberger.
Among modern Cartier models, the ones that most attracted my attention were Santos, Dumont and Tank Americaine. In fact, I also love the classical Tank model, but I’ve found out that I liked the vintages and especially the ones with precious metals, instead of modern ones, in that model. Actually, I used a yellow gold vintage Cartier Tank for a period, and I think now and I don’t really know why I broke with that watch. You know this is what the horology world is; they come and they go. Sometimes you may even buy the same watch again. One day, I may buy again a vintage Tank.
Now if I’m to get to the point, I was very excited with the revamp of the Santos and Santos Dumont family in 2018, due to my admiration for Cartier and my respect for its past. My first impressions were very much positive. In recent months, a desire to buy a new steel watch that I couldn’t avoid has arisen in me –and you know how-. Frankly speaking, I went to Cartier without looking at any other brand. And as I just said, I focused on the Santos, Santos Dumont and Americaine models.
In fact, it didn’t take long for me to decide; after trying on all three watches, I bought the Santos offered together with a leather strap and a steel bracelet. Alright, yet why I didn’t get the other two models?
Although I couldn’t find any aesthetical flaw in Dumont, the fact that it was delivered only with a quartz movement and had no steel bracelet at all led me to eliminate it. Meanwhile, I hope a Dumont with a manual winding mechanism would be produced in a short period of time.
The situation is much complex with the Americaine; the medium-sized model that tried on didn’t fit somehow on my wrist at all, and I couldn’t feel comfortable with it on my wrist in no way. Besides, I noticed that the central seconds hand doesn’t ever look good. I think what I’ve said about the Tank model are also true of the Tank Americaine. This model would be much meaningful with precious metal and manual winding mechanism. I didn’t want an automatic, steel Americaine with central seconds.
Let me try to answer the question in the title of my article. Why did I buy Santos? By the way, the Santos that I talk about is the medium-sized one. The large-sized Santos didn’t look so good on my wrist. In addition, another plus to the medium-sized Santos was that it didn’t have a date window. When I first took the watch in my hand to review, what surprised me about the watch was its weight, or rather its lightness! Although I liked the old generation Santos 100 from far away, when I put it on my wrist, I didn’t like the feeling it gave me with its heftiness, as the phrase goes, with its bracelet like a tank palette as a huge pile of steel in my arm. The case with the New Santos was so different that the grossness of the previous model was replaced with the classical Cartier elegance. I understood that this was the watch I must get, as soon as I tried it on my wrist. The fact that it is offered with the duo of steel bracelet and leather strap was also very effective in my decision.
After I took the watch home, I removed plastic protective films on it and examined my watch in more details. First of all, I realized that it was, in case form, much more similar, than the previous generations of Santos, to the watch Louis Cartier produced in 1904 for his friend, the Brazilian aviator Albertos Santos Dumont.
Let me try to express the situation exactly; in fact, Santos is a model that has its own peculiar design codes and a robust history, and yet, however, they designed, with the update, a modern watch without leaving the historical codes – here I want to really congratulate Cartier. That’s to say, if there wasn’t a model called Santos before, or if this was to be the Santos released first, believe me, I would like it anyway. On the other hand, I liked the watch as a latest version released after all Santos models produced so far.
Let me tell you my observations about the watch;
One of the most striking updates is on the bezel. While, on the previous models, the bezel circumscribes the dial in a square form, a more integrated look of the case with the bezel is achieved, on the updated Santos, by extending the top and bottom edges of the bezel between the lugs. By the way, whereas the front side of the case and almost all of it is satin polished, the bezel is polished bright creating an eye-catching contrast. The polished bezel may lead to easy scratch but this isn’t much important for me. I’m one who wears the watches he bought and I bought the Santos to wear. In other words, I will not wrap and hide it in cotton with the fear of a scratch.
Though it has a square case form, the watch is not an “angular” one, that is to say, the watch has no sharp angles or edges at all. I’ve just said that almost the entire case is satin polished, except for the bezel. Other than the bezel, there are two sections with bright polish; first one is the screw heads on the bracelet and the other is the bevel connecting the top and side edges of the case. After going all along with the entire case and designating the guidelines, this polished line ascends naturally on both sides of the heptagon crown with a blue synthetic crystal and forms a crownguard.
There is no surprise on the dial, perhaps it doesn’t features a guilloche pattern yet it has all what should be had; a fine white tone, Cartier-style classical Roman numerals, and a tempered steel set of hands. For me, the lack of date window is an advantage; I normally have no problem with date function, even I find it very useful. While it shows a characteristic look on some watches, lack of it on this model ensured the dial integrity.
A sapphire crystal is seated on top of the 35,1mm x 41,9mm case, whereas, at the back, a steel cover is held in place with eight screws. The caseback features Cartier inscription engraved on a highly brushed surface and some other information, one saying the water resistance is 100m.
I’ve said I was surprised by the lightness of the watch as I took it in my hand, yet, in addition to its lightness, its thinness also surprised me. The watch is 8,83mm thick. It owes this thinness to its in-house automatic 1847 MC caliber. With 23 jewels, the caliber operates at 28,800 vph (4 Hz) and offers a power reserve of 42 hours. In my researches, I found out that it has a magnetic protection feature due to the special alloys used in some parts of the caliber and in the inner part of the case, but the extent of the protection is not mentioned. I think it will ensure adequate resistance against the magnetic fields of the daily life. Since I have no intent to have an MR imaging test with the watch on my wrist, an excessive magnetic field protection is not important for me.
Let’s get down to the bracelet and leather strap. Cartier has offered two new renovations on the bracelet and leather strap of the new Santos. These are the QuickSwitch system offered with the strap and bracelet for easy change, and the SmartLink system offered with the bracelet to adjust the length. Let me start with the bracelet first; the bracelet is satin polished and seems to be fully integrated with the case. The screw heads on it are bright polished and their directions are random, that is, just like on the bezel of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, they don’t follow any direction or all of them don’t look in the same direction. This doesn’t disturb me at all. I can even say it appealed to me. It has a hidden butterfly clasp unfolding by pushing the buttons on both sides, with Cartier logo on it. And it has a nice feeling of closure.
The watch is also delivered with a leather strap in addition to the steel bracelet. You are allowed to choose the color of this leather strap on Cartier website, but the boutique, where I bought from, had Santoses ordered only with tan leather straps – this may be so because it’s the most preferred and less risky color. I’m infatuated with the steel bracelet watch but peradventure you wanted to change it. This is so easy thanks to the QuickSwitch system; we turn the watch upside down, and push the button at the point where the bracelet integrated with the case and pull out the bracelet upwards. That’s all. It is easily released with no worries at all and it is replaced back with the same ease. The only disadvantage that may be said here is that you cannot use the watch with an aftermarket strap.
Since I admired the steel bracelet model of the watch, as I’ve just said above, and since I shall wear it this way for some time, I had to adjust the bracelet for my wrist. I haven’t seen a link release system so much easy till now. The system, called SmartLink by Cartier, works in this way: when you press the small push-button on the undersides of the detachable links of the bracelet with the two-ended plastic tool, a pin bulges out from the side of the link. On the other end of the tool is a fork and by attaching the fork to the notched part of the bulged pin, you pull it out and hence remove it from its nest. It was a little bit hard to explain but you will understand what I mean if you watch the video above. It’s really so much easy.
To sum up; I bought the medium-sized steel version of Cartier Santos and I gladly wear it. It’s quite a practical watch in the daily life, since it’s an automatic, time-only model with a bracelet. The retail price of the watch with Ref. WSSA0010 on www.cartier.com website is 6,250$. If you ask me, there are many double priced watches that are not produced with such a quality workmanship. The watch gives you a quality feeling much more than its price.
Saying ‘hi’ here, I wanted the first story to be one of my stories, and I tried to tell about the decision-making process of buying one of my timepieces and then my impressions with the watch. I hope you liked it. See you.
You may visit www.cartier.com website for the technical details and prices of all Cartier models.
