Things you probably didn’t know about Cartier watches

His month, after a two-and-a-half-year renovation, Cartier House in Manhattan was reopened to the public. The event was marked with a suitably lavish soirée that comprised the New York City Ballet, a sterile ice steam tub, Paul Sevigny about the decks, an impromptu collection from Ellie Goulding along with a hopeless selection of the planet’s glitterati, old and new.
The building was restored to its 1904 country, complete with paintings and photographs of all Cartier icons in every area, from Grace Kelly to Elizabeth Taylor. However, the most intriguing story of the day stretched back nearly 100 decades, to when Cartier got the assumptions, a narrative which struck me an ideal starting point for the third edition of the 10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know series.
Cartier’s New York Mansion Swapped for $100 plus a String of Pearls Cartier House is a six-story mansion which resides on the intersection of 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue, in one of the most exclusive shopping destinations in the world.

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According to the, Plant, annoyed from the rise of commercial ventures on Fifth Avenue, was already preparing another address for residence when Cartier became interested in his mansion. It just so happened that his wife, twenty years his junior and with an insatiable eye for life’s luxuries watches, had fallen for a string of Cartier pearls exhibited at Cartier’s other New York address. It wasn’t just any string of pearls , but an incomparably rare double-set of large South Sea naturals. Cartier had valued the rings at $1 million, which was regarded as a similar value to the mansion. A painting by Claudia Munro Kerr reveals Mrs. Maisie Plant in her full glory, with the double string of pearls round her throat.

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Upon Mrs. Plant’s passing in 1957 her estate was auctioned. Amongst the collection of delicacies was her dual string of pearls, which sold for only $181,000, as by then pearls were devalued by the introduction of cultured pearls. The strange thing is, that today nobody knows the place of the necklace. You can read a detailed account of this story and the Cartier renovation at a recent Hodinkee article From South Sea pearls to Indian jewels.
Among the rarest and most eye-catching Cartier watches you will ever see is a bit made in 1929. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Jacques Cartier has been posted as kingpin of Cartier’s British division. One of his biggest achievements was recognising the”Jewel in the British Crown”, which was the term he used to spell British affection for their ex-colony. His fame gave birth to a new style of jewelry design, heavily influenced by Indian strategies and full of Indian exotic colored gems such as sapphires, rubies and emeralds. It wasn’t until a couple of decades later, in 1970, the design was given the name,”Tutti Frutti”.
The opinion pictured was made in 1929. It is currently owned by Cartier and shown from the Maison Cartier.