Rare white gold Cartier Cheich sells for record $3.4 million in Hong Kong

A white gold Cartier Cheich sold for a record $3.4 million at Sotheby's Hong Kong on Friday, becoming the most expensive Cartier wristwatch ever sold at auction. The nine-minute bidding war drew online, telephone and in-person bidders, and the hammer price landed at HK$26,520,000, or roughly $3,413,124 including fees, Sotheby's said.

The Cheich was one of only five known examples, and this particular watch was a one-off made by Cartier in 2010. It was cased in white gold, powered by a quartz movement, and measured 38 millimeters in length by 27mm in width, presented on a brown leather strap.

It carried a unique presentation box and certificate marking it No. 1 of 1, and it was commissioned specially for Giorgio Seragnoli, co-author of the Cartier Bianco book and the owner of one of the most significant collections of white metal Cartier watches in existence.

The Cheich's story predates this sale by decades. Cartier and its then-president Alain-Dominique Perrin created the Cartier Challenge in 1983 as a prize tied to the Paris-Dakar Rally, the roughly 10,000-kilometer endurance race founded in 1978 by motorcycle racer Thierry Sabine.

The trophy watch, named for the cheich, the blue headscarf worn by the Sahara's nomadic Tuareg people, went to any rider or driver who won the same category two years running. Cartier made it only for winners and never sold it to the public.

Only one person ever claimed the prize: Belgian motocross champion Gaston Rahier, who won consecutively in 1984 and 1985. The Cartier Challenge folded soon after Sabine died in a helicopter crash in 1986, ending the program for good.

Of the four original gold mechanical Cheich watches believed to have been made, two prototypes remain in Cartier's own heritage museum. Sabine's example is unaccounted for and presumed lost, while Rahier's own trophy sold at Sotheby's in 2022 for about $1.1 million to collector Eric Ku.

How the record compares

Friday's result eclipses the previous Cartier auction record of $2 million, paid for a 1991 London Cartier Crash at Christie's Geneva in May. That watch had itself only recently topped another Crash that sold at Sotheby's for about $1.99 million weeks earlier.

Cartier is a Paris-based maison whose watches and jewelry span the Santos, the Tank and the Panthère, and our buying guide across those lines has tracked retail prices from a few thousand dollars up. That range makes the Cheich's price a case apart, set by rarity rather than by catalogue.

A second Cartier lot also set a record at the same sale. A London Midi Pebble, made in 1973 or 1974, sold for HK$3.8 million, about $494,000 including fees, the highest price ever paid at auction for a Pebble model, surpassing a 2021 Phillips sale of about $450,000.

The Pebble withdrawn from sale

That record followed a separate, stranger development. Sotheby's withdrew a different Cartier London Maxi Pebble, lot 2241, after discovering it shared a case serial number with another Pebble due to be sold by Monaco Legend Auctions in October.

Sotheby's said it had agreed with Monaco Legend to pull both watches while further research is conducted into the discrepancy, and thanked the rival house in a statement for its collaboration, transparency and professionalism throughout the process.

Monaco Legend specialist Andrea Parmegiani said the group plans to open and disassemble both watches for closer inspection, gather archival material on Cartier London's production and procedures from that period, and consult other vintage Cartier experts to verify authenticity and originality.

"These two watches are in no rush to be sold," Parmegiani said, calling them exceedingly rare and exceedingly gorgeous examples of Cartier Heritage London pieces that deserve to be sold at their best rather than on a fixed timetable.

The record price for the Cheich underscores surging collector and speculator interest in rare white gold Cartier pieces, a category our own guide to white gold jewelry has traced for its rising premium over yellow gold in vintage watch sales generally.

Monaco Legend expects to consult Cartier itself on London-era production records as part of its inspection of the two disputed Pebbles, work that will determine whether either watch returns to a future sale calendar.