CPCP Tank Louis Cartier (yellow gold, 1998-2008)

This is a small gold dress watch from Collection Privée Cartier Paris, the mechanical-watch series Cartier introduced in 1998. The series returned to historical case shapes without trying to turn every one into a large modern watch. Reference W1527851 is a particularly compact example: its yellow-gold case measures about 30 by 24 millimeters.

The Tank Louis form comes from the early 1920s. Its two long sides extend beyond the dial to hold the leather strap, with rounded surfaces rather than the harder edges of the earliest Tanks. On this version, the strap, case and pale dial make three narrow rectangles within one another.

There is quite a lot to see inside the smallest rectangle. The silvered dial has a fine repeating texture, called guilloché, behind the Roman numerals. A railway-style minute track sits farther in. The blue hands are the only strong color, and the small Paris inscription below Cartier identifies the city that the series put back into its name.

The movement is the hand-wound 021 MC. It drives two hands, with no date window or seconds display. That arrangement keeps the face open and allows a thin case; it also means there is no moving seconds hand to tell you immediately that the watch is running. Winding is done at the small crown with its blue stone.

The numerals fill the narrow face, and the gold sides are substantial beside them. Even with only two hands, almost none of the dial is unused.