A watch barely 38 millimetres wide broke the auction record for Cartier last week. At Sotheby’s in Hong Kong, a unique Cartier Cheich in white gold sold for 26.5 million Hong Kong dollars, roughly 3.4 million US dollars including fees. According to National Jeweler, SJX Watches and Watch Collecting Lifestyle, it is now the most expensive Cartier wristwatch ever sold at auction.
A watch that began as a rally trophy
The Cheich is no ordinary Cartier model. Its design goes back to the Paris Dakar rally. In the 1980s Cartier sponsored the race and had a trophy made for its winners: the Cartier Challenge. The shape refers to the cheich, the headscarf worn by the Tuareg in the Sahara. Belgian motorcycle rider Gaston Rahier, who won the rally in 1984 and 1985, received one in yellow gold.
According to the sources, only five Cheich watches exist. Four are the yellow gold originals from the 1980s. The fifth is the piece that has just been sold. Cartier made it in 2010 at the request of Italian collector Giorgio Seragnoli, known for his large collection of Cartier watches in white metal. It is the only Cheich in white gold, and the case is engraved “No. 1”. A striking detail: it is a quartz watch, so it runs on a battery. SJX also calls it the most expensive quartz watch ever sold publicly.
The auction house had estimated the piece at between 8 and 40 million Hong Kong dollars. Earlier this year, in April, a 1987 Cartier Crash London fetched about $2 million. At the time, that was the record for a Cartier wristwatch. Gaston Rahier’s yellow gold Cheich was sold by Sotheby’s in 2022 for just over one million euros.
A record sale in Hong Kong
The Cheich was the highlight of a two day sale that raised a total of 426 million Hong Kong dollars, about 55 million US dollars. According to Sotheby’s, that is the highest total ever for a watch sale at the house and the most valuable watch auction ever held in Asia. Both National Jeweler and Artdaily confirm this.
Gold value or collector value: where is the difference?
To put the price in perspective: gold closed on Friday 25 September at around $4,285 per troy ounce. So $3.4 million would buy almost 25 kilos of pure gold. The Cheich itself contains only a fraction of that. Almost the entire price is collector value, not gold value.
What determines that collector value? For this watch, every factor comes together:
- Rarity. Only one white gold Cheich exists. Anyone who wants it has no alternative.
- Story. The link with the Paris Dakar rally and with a well known jewellery house gives the piece a history.
- Provenance. The watch was made for a known collector and has been well documented ever since.
- Papers and box. A certificate and the original box prove that a piece is genuine and where it comes from. For collectors, that carries a lot of weight.
- Condition. A collector’s piece in top condition fetches far more than one with scratches or replaced parts.
What this means if you want to sell a gold watch
We have to be honest here: an ordinary gold watch is not a Cheich. Most gold watches people have at home were made in large numbers. They have no unique story, and the papers or box are often missing. When sold, such watches are valued mainly on their gold weight, just like any other gold jewellery you sell. What counts then is mostly the gold in the case, the bracelet and the clasp.
How that gold weight translates into an amount depends on the purity and on today’s gold price. Not sure whether a watch is really gold, or what purity it is? Our gold check page explains what to look for, such as the hallmarks inside the case. How weight, carat and price together determine the value is explained on our page about how to sell old gold.
Do you have a watch from a major brand, with box and papers? Then it makes sense to keep those documents together. That applies to any valuable item, by the way. The Royal Belgian Mint gives the same advice for its new Belga Gold bullion coin: keep the proof of purchase with the item itself.
A record like this says something about one unique piece, not about gold watches in general. For almost every gold watch sitting in a drawer, the gold weight remains the basis of its value.
Above all, the white gold Cheich shows how far collector value can drift from gold value. For a handful of pieces in the world, the gold is secondary. For everything else, the gold itself remains the yardstick, and that follows the price of the day.