Santos de Cartier Skeleton Watch Ref. WHSA0016

The Santos de Cartier Skeleton in rose gold takes Cartier's oldest wristwatch design and strips it back to the mechanism. The Santos was created in 1904 for the aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, who wanted to read the time while flying, and its squared case with exposed screws has been recognisable ever since. Here the dial is removed almost entirely, and the movement's bridges are shaped to form the Roman numerals themselves, so the architecture that drives the watch is also what tells the time.

That movement is the Manufacture calibre 9619 MC, hand-wound rather than automatic, individually numbered and built from 138 parts with 20 jewels, running at 28,800 vibrations an hour with around 72 hours of power reserve. Because there is no rotor in the way, the openworked bridges are visible from both sides, through the sapphire crystal and the sapphire caseback.

The large model case is 18K rose gold, water resistant to 100 metres, with the seven-sided crown set with a faceted sapphire and golden sword-shaped hands. It comes with two bracelets, one in matching rose gold with Cartier's SmartLink system for resizing by hand, and a second in grey leather with a rose gold folding buckle, interchangeable without tools using QuickSwitch. At Konesseur, every Cartier is authenticated and inspected in Dubai before listing, and the UAE's 5% VAT is a meaningful advantage at this level. See more Cartier watches or the full watches range to compare.

• Reference and model: Cartier Santos de Cartier Skeleton, large model, Ref. WHSA0016, 18K rose gold
• Movement: Manufacture calibre 9619 MC, manual winding, individually numbered, 138 parts, 20 jewels, 28,800 vph, ~72h power reserve, skeletonised bridges forming Roman numerals
• Build and bracelets: seven-sided crown set with a faceted sapphire, golden sword-shaped hands, sapphire crystal and caseback, 100m water resistance, rose gold bracelet with SmartLink plus a second grey leather strap, both QuickSwitch interchangeable
• Condition and authenticity: authenticated by Konesseur (confirm both bracelets are present, plus condition, box and papers, against the listing)