Bring a Loupe An Odd Duck Patek Perpetual Calendar, A Van Cleef & Arpels By Genta, And A Questionable Breguet

But first, results! "Breguet: Inventors and Builders" at Hôtel des Ventes Giraudeau in Tours, France, looks to have been a massive success. All four Breguet watches sold over their respective high estimates, and the documents did well too. Lot 44, the Breguet manuscript from 1815, sold for €8,190, and lot 130, a 1821 letter from Louis-Clément Breguet detailing the Souscription watch, sold for €3,780. Check out all of the Breguet results right here. Our Nomos LE for Air France sold for €5,500, and the Orvis-stamped Hamilton has been marked "out of stock" over on eBay; the asking price was $638.98.

And now, a special weekend edition of Bring A Loupe!

With all of the demand for shaped watches, particularly at the lower end of the collectible market, I have been continually puzzled by the tonneau-shaped neo-vintage Patek Philippe reference 5040. The elongated case measures 36mm wide by 42.5mm lug-to-lug and wears like a dream. Some of the more "trendy" shapes I'm referring to from Cartier, Piaget, Berneron, and the rest veer further away from traditional designs, whereas tonneau cases have been around as long as wristwatches have.

That said, this shape, while divisive, is natural for filling the top of a wrist and is due for a surge in popularity, if you ask me. Specifically, in the past six months, collectors have begun to gravitate towards tonneau-shaped watches, moving upmarket from the 5040 (the Patek 5013, for example) and down (Franck Muller's Cintree Curvex). Yet the 5040 remains relatively unloved.

This reference has always been unloved. Offered alongside the quintessential Patek Philippe QP, the 3940, the 5040 was then and remains a stepchild—these two share a movement, the in-house caliber 240 Q, and numerous dial design cues. If you want something off the beaten track and rarer than the perfect-yet-boring 3940, this is the one for you. What you gain by making the switch is an equally masterfully proportioned dial design, but with Breguet numerals, matching pomme hands, and a price tag of roughly $20,000 to $30,000. Because that's watch math, isn't it? I actually saved money by purchasing this watch, as I would have otherwise bought a more expensive one.

So, if you've heard and read other gush about how perfect the 3940 is, I would implore you to consider the humble 5040 — the classier, more trad sibling. What the watch offers is all the same neo-vintage Patek charm, with creamy tones on the dial and considered case sizing. It features a micro-rotor, ultra-thin QP movement that has proven to be one of the best ever made, and the opportunity to own a complicated Patek that most people have never seen in the metal before.

The seller, Ben of Watch Brothers London in, well, Brighton, is offering this first series Patek 5040J for £29,950. You can check it out in full via his website right here.

Van Cleef is a bit of a sleeper in the world of vintage watches. Of course, the brand is better known for its jewelry, particularly the Alhambra collection, but like Cartier and Boucheron, VC&A once retailed some truly incredible watches. A collaboration before anyone knew what a collaboration was, this watch is the result of a partnership between Van Cleef and Gérald Genta. 

By the late 1970s, Genta was well established as a watch designer — I guess that's what having the Royal Oak and the Nautilus under your belt can do for a guy — and, as far as I can tell by looking at the watches, it seems as though he began to pitch retailers watches that he designed like the one we are looking at here.

Many had interesting case shapes and implemented organic materials — I'm thinking of a Genta-designed Hermès watch with a wood case, for example. I have come across a good number of these retailer-collaboration Gentas over the years, but never all too many examples of any one design. I imagine that they are quite rare in that way; many designs, but very few of each are produced and sold.

With a half-cushion and half-Patek Ellipse look, the watch is distinct, as many of Genta's designs are. To me, this period of the designer's career represents his transition from commercial models like the Polerouter and Royal Oak towards the very funky and uniquely Genta designs of the 1980s and 90s under his namesake brand. Each one is a piece of watch design history, and the name on the dial, being Van Cleef, makes it all the more compelling for me. The dial is made of tortoise acetate, resulting in a similar look to tiger eye stone dials.

The seller, Dusan of Discreet Peacock in Toronto, Canada, is offering this VC&A x Genta for $6,499. Get all the details right here via his website or via the Pushers.io app, where, admittedly, I found it.

Cartier's appeal is its timeless dress aesthetic. Years ago, a list of banned words was circulated amongst those writing for Hodinkee, and "timeless" was certainly on it. I apologize to the author of that list, but if I may, I would propose that if an exception is to be made, 'timeless' should only be used to describe Cartier. Why this diatribe? Well, this Cartier dates to the 2000s, but the reason for its inclusion in this article is that it mimics the wrist presence of a watch 40 to 80 years its senior.

The Cartier Tank Americaine was introduced in 1989 as a "modern" reinterpretation of the 1921 Tank Cintrée. Technically, it features a curved, waterproof case, the brand's first. The Americaine is bolder with thicker brancards and aimed, as the name may suggest, to appeal to the brash and bold American market. 

After handling enough vintage Cintrée examples, from the 1920s to the 1960s, I can say that the original is quite delicate, especially in the largest, "jumbo" size. I'm not going to tell you I prefer the Americaine to the Cintrée, but it honestly does not veer too far from its inspiration in wrist feel. Only when the Americaine is upsized does it lose its connection to the Cintrée.

The ref. 1720 is a mid-sized Americaine — sometimes wrongly called a "ladies" model. Yes, it is powered by a quartz movement, but really, after 1972, collectors rarely buy a Cartier for the movement. Additionally, when quartz-powered, the Americaine of this era loses its seconds hand, making it even more similar to the Cintrée. The real key is the sizing. At 22.5mm wide by 41.5mm tall, this watch sits in a sweet spot right between the vintage "jumbo" 9-ligne Cintrée (23mm by 46mm) and the 8-ligne mid-size (20mm by 36mm). This is the vintage Cintrée I wish Cartier had made.

An eBay seller in Medford, MA, has listed this Cartier on eBay for a buy it now price of $6,500. Check it out in full right here.

As you may have heard or read numerous times by now, Breguet is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year. If you're looking to celebrate by buying an important vintage Breguet wristwatch, let's make sure it's not this one. Okay, that's a bit harsh. In the perfect world, there is a wrist for every vintage watch, but at the very least, know what this watch is before considering it.

When I first scrolled by this eBay find, my ears perked up. Very rarely do I see pre-1970s Breguet pop up in my saved searches. I should have known it was too good to be true by the thumbnail. As I tapped in, the dial immediately concerned me. Namely, the applied numerals being a bit too close to the minute track for my liking, not what I would expect from the house of Breguet. 

But Rich, you may say, the seller states that "the watch is entirely original, it has not been cleaned, it has not been reproduced, the dial is original, it has not been repainted." They sure do, and that is the problem. Many watches from the 1950s have had their dials repainted or restored at this point, but this should be disclosed or, at the very least, not marketed as the opposite. It took me 5 seconds and Google to find Breguet no. 466 offered at Antiquorum in 1996 with a differently, also wrong, repainted dial — tsk, tsk.

It's a shame because the watch is interesting. It's not the typical time-only wristwatch we find from Breguet in this era, known as the Empire, but rather a simpler model powered by the same high-grade chronometer movement, the Peseux 260. Authenticity-wise, the case and movement are passing my smell test. Breguet marked its watches in this same, quite crude manner at the time, and the case was supplied by French-based Jules Person, as it should be.

Here is the link, proceed at your own risk.