18ct Gold, a Full Baguette Ruby Border

A Cartier evening watch of the mid-1920s, at the scale the house judged right for the job: 31mm of solid 18k gold, slim enough for the pocket of a dinner jacket, wound and set from the pendant. What lifts it beyond the plain gold examples is the caseband: a continuous border of baguette rubies, channel-set the whole way round, every stone present. In the hand the border reads as a thin line of colour; under light it comes alive.

The dial is two-tone silver with an engine-turned centre, stylised Art Deco Arabic numerals and blued Breguet hands with the open ring near the tip, signed Cartier, Paris-Londres. It is original and untouched, carrying light spotting to the centre and around the upper numerals exactly as an unrestored dial of this age should, with the signature still crisp.

Cartier in the 1920s was making watches as jewellery and jewellery as watches, and this piece sits precisely on that line: a working lever movement inside a case built like a ring. The movement winds smoothly, sets correctly and runs well. The gold shows the honest scratches of an evening watch that went out often; the rubies show only light surface wear.

Gem-set Cartier pocket watches were made in small numbers and tend to stay in collections once they arrive. This one is complete, signed, running and whole.

The marks, the movement and the condition are set out piece by piece in the drawers below; the movement's attribution is set out in The Record.