CaratSotheby's sells a Cartier Cheich for HK$26.52m in Hong Kong
The one-off white-gold prize watch carried a HK$8.0m to HK$40m estimate. Two trade accounts convert the same Hong Kong dollar result differently, at US$3.38m and US$3,413,124.
Cartier's record moved. A unique white-gold Cartier Cheich sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong for HK$26,520,000 with fees on 18 September. No Cartier wristwatch has made more at auction.
If you deal in vintage Cartier: The record sits on a one-off commission rather than a production reference, so it reprices provenance and not the model line.
If you own a quartz watch: SJX records the same sale as the highest ever paid for a quartz wristwatch, a movement type the secondary market has discounted for forty years.
What this is not: A Cartier index. One lot, with four known siblings, cannot carry a maker's secondary market.
| Lot or mark | Result, with fees | In US dollars | Record claimed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cartier Cheich, white gold, 2010 | HK$26,520,000 | US$3.38m or US$3,413,124 | Cartier wristwatch, all time |
| Cartier London Midi Pebble, 1973-74 | HK$3.8m | about US$494,000 | Pebble model, all time |
| Prior Cartier mark | not stated in HKD | about US$2m | displaced by this sale |
| Rahier's original Cheich, 2022 | not stated in HKD | EUR1m or US$1.1m | none |
IA prize that was never sold
Made for a race. Cartier created the Cheich as a trophy for anyone winning the same Paris-Dakar category in consecutive years. Only Gaston Rahier, who took the motorcycle class in 1984 and 1985, ever received one.
One built later. Four originals in gold are believed to have been made. The white-gold piece sold on 18 September was commissioned separately in 2010 by the collector Giorgio Seragnoli and carries a certificate reading No. 1 of 1.
IITwo accounts, two dollar figures
Hong Kong agrees. Hodinkee prints HK$26,520,000 including fees and attributes the figure to a Sotheby's statement. SJX prints HK$26.5 million with fees, which is the same number rounded to three digits.
The dollar does not. Hodinkee converts to US$3,413,124 and SJX to US$3.38 million. The gap is the exchange rate each applied, not a disagreement about what the watch made.
The estimate was wide. SJX gives a pre-sale range of HK$8.0m to HK$40m, about US$1.0m to US$5.0m. It reads the unusual width as a term agreed between consignor and house.
IIIQuartz sets the second record
Not a mechanical movement. The 2010 commission runs a quartz calibre, and SJX records the result as the most ever paid at auction for a quartz wristwatch. The four originals are mechanical.
A second Cartier record. Hodinkee reports a Cartier London Midi Pebble from 1973 or 1974 made HK$3.8m, about US$494,000, in the same sale. That is above a Pebble sold at Phillips in 2021 for about US$450,000.
One lot came out. Sotheby's withdrew a Cartier London Maxi Pebble, lot 2241, after finding it shared a case serial number with a watch consigned to Monaco Legend Auctions. Both houses withdrew their lots.
01What would change this call+
A house-published result. Sotheby's has not put a lot-level figure where this desk could read it; a result page carrying a different number, or a restated currency conversion, would change the figure in the headline.
02Why the Hong Kong dollar figure leads and the US dollar figure follows+
An auction result is struck in the saleroom's own currency. Everything after that is a conversion made by whoever is writing it up, at whatever rate they used and at whatever moment they used it. The Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the US dollar inside a band that runs roughly 7.75 to 7.85, so two honest conversions of the same result can differ by more than one per cent without either being wrong. That is exactly what happened here: HK$26,520,000 divided by US$3,413,124 gives 7.77, and divided by US$3,380,000 gives 7.85. The difference, about US$33,000, is larger than most people's watches and is entirely an artefact of arithmetic. This paper therefore prints the struck currency in the headline, carries both conversions in the table, and never averages them into a third number that nobody published.
03Method · the desk’s arithmetic+
The HK$26,520,000 figure, the Sotheby's attribution, the 1984 and 1985 Rahier wins, the 2010 Seragnoli commission, the No. 1 of 1 certificate, the Midi Pebble result and the Maxi Pebble withdrawal all come from Hodinkee's report of 18 September 2026, byline Andy Hoffman, read from the page's raw bytes on 23 September 2026. Its text reads, of the Cheich, that bidding pushed the price to HK$26,520,000 including fees or about $3,413,124, and attributes that to a Sotheby's statement. The pre-sale estimate of HK$8.0m to HK$40m, the US$3.38 million conversion and the quartz record come from SJX Watches' report of 22 September 2026, byline JX Su, read the same way. SJX carries the result as HK$26.5 million with fees and does not print the unrounded figure; Hodinkee does not carry the estimate range or the quartz claim. Neither claim is folded into the other and each is attributed above to the outlet that actually carries it. Sotheby's own Important Watches auction page was fetched directly (200, 768,216 bytes) and carries the sale's description and its lot listings, but no realised price for this lot appears in the bytes served, so no house-published result is cited here and the sale total is not printed. A duPont Registry piece headed 'Six World Records and $52 Million in Sales' surfaced in search and was discarded on its own byline date of 27 April 2026: it reports an earlier Hong Kong sale and its total does not belong to this one. Archive check, one term per grep against content/articles.json: 'Cheich' returns 0 hits, so this watch and this sale are new to this paper; 'Cartier' returns 50, all of them other subjects.
HK$20m ruby earrings lead Sotheby's Hong Kong sale on 17 September
The jewellery half of the same Hong Kong season, and what it was estimated at.
The trade, filed before the New York open.
Prices, tenders and the one story that moved the industry overnight. Ninety seconds.
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