Cartier santos

[Mxibro]

Anyone point me in the direction of a good quality Cartier santos mid size on a bracelet? Just sold my Tc lv2 so currently have no watch on!

[hambone]

Trusty, and most of our listed dealers carry them. Take your pick from their websites.

[automatico]

"Cartier santos mid size on a bracelet?"

I owned a genuine quartz Cartier Santos quartz many years back and traded it away. About 10 years ago I wanted another one and bought a replica stainless steel quartz model that is super accurate to the genuine. The case back has 987901 over 27953 and has the modern style bracelet with a hidden clasp. It has screws in the bezel like genuine and all the screw heads are applied to the outside of the bracelet, not stamped. The watch would be hard to spot as a replica. The only thing I changed was to replace the Phillips head case back screws with slotted pan head screws like the genuine watch has. The movement is a Hattori (Seiko) and has been running reliably for 10 years with a few new batts. The main drawback is it has the 'knuckle link' bracelet exactly like genuine and they will not tolerate bending past where it develops resistance. The case is 30mm wide across 3 to 9 not counting the crown guards. My guess is they still make this exact same watch today.

[Mxibro]

17 hours ago, automatico said:

"Cartier santos mid size on a bracelet?"

I owned a genuine quartz Cartier Santos quartz many years back and traded it away. About 10 years ago I wanted another one and bought a replica stainless steel quartz model that is super accurate to the genuine. The case back has 987901 over 27953 and has the modern style bracelet with a hidden clasp. It has screws in the bezel like genuine and all the screw heads are applied to the outside of the bracelet, not stamped. The watch would be hard to spot as a replica. The only thing I changed was to replace the Phillips head case back screws with slotted pan head screws like the genuine watch has. The movement is a Hattori (Seiko) and has been running reliably for 10 years with a few new batts. The main drawback is it has the 'knuckle link' bracelet exactly like genuine and they will not tolerate bending past where it develops resistance. The case is 30mm wide across 3 to 9 not counting the crown guards. My guess is they still make this exact same watch today.

Sounds great but I don't like the idea of a Quartz mvt for some reason! ive been looking at Matts DJ builds so think I may go down that route instead.

[automatico]

"Sounds great but I don't like the idea of a Quartz mvt for some reason!"

Can't argue with that, quartz is not for everyone. The Santos autos in this size had a bulge on the case back for the thicker movement back when I bought the genuine watch and did not conform as well to the wrist, that is why I chose quartz. Back then the quartz models were a lot thinner and the case back was curved to match the case.

I owned a genuine Cartier Tank Francaise automatic in 2005 (about the same size as the Santos) and it had a thin Eta 2000 auto movement in it.  Now they use a thinner movement (Eta 2000?) in the Santos automatics and thinned the case backs down and flattened them out. 

There is an older auto Santos on eBay, item number  301852794938  that shows the bulge in the case back in the last two pictures. It is an earlier model with the regular (not hidden) clasp. A later model item number  291665874995  has the hidden clasp and flat case back. I do not know which case back the automatic replicas will have but the models with the bulge are not as comfortable.