Oman Khanjar, Burgundy Lacquer Dial Cartier Santos Carrée

Yes, that’s a khanjar at 6 on a burgundy lacquer dial Carrée. There can be no doubt, this is the most exceptional Cartier we’ve seen surface in the market this year. If you could summarize the Oman in the 1980s in one watch, this has to be it. We’re used to seeing khanjars on Rolex and even the occasional IWC, but Oman dials on Cartier are just fantastically uncommon. Yet, they do exist. And this is as perfect a configuration as you’re going to find: mechanical calibre, red lacquer dial, yellow gold, full 2960-sized case (though serial starts 8172). The Middle East does bring the heat.

This watch was present by the Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said, to its current owner whilst he was serving as Defence Attache in Muscat in 1986. As watch pick up stories go, that’s world class. It was gifted alongside a Santos Octagon in perfect matching spec which was given to his wife by His Highness. Only a few of these have been documented. I’m aware of roughly four Khanjar Santos (most notably AVW had one with a white dial, one resides with another friend of Hairspring) and six or seven Octagons at various points. I have no doubts more exist, but in terms of what I’ve seen in my time watching the market and auctions alongside what’s documented, that’s about right. It is as important a Cartier as there’s been.

Interestingly, there isn’t really a market precedent for this watch. None has come to auction prior. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something like a 3-6x multiplier over current gold Carrée values, only because that’s the sort of precedent which has been set by the Rolex market. Usually, the lesser seen the Oman dial of any reference is, the more extreme that multiplier is. The estimate for this auction is 10-20K GBP, but I’ll be surprised if the final hammer isn’t double that top guide. If you’re a Cartier obsessive, this is what I’d call ‘not a repeatable proposition’. If you’re not a Cartier obsessive, it’s still a watch that’s impossible to not appreciate historically, the only Santos that can transport you directly to Muscat, Oman in 1986.

This example looks to be just lightly worn and really nothing more. The case and bezel have light hairlines, nothing more. The provenance here helps a lot with this watch, and it’s great that there’s the original Khanjar box as well. It’s interesting that we sometimes see Khanjar markings on the clasps of these, but not on this pair. It seems to be earlier examples that have Middle Eastern hallmarks on the clasp. This one lacks those, but others we’ve seen don’t have them either so I wouldn’t get bent out of shape over that, this one is pretty well documented. It’s the only burgundy lacquer dial example I’ve seen, so if you really want it, don’t hang around. It’s coming up to auction this month from a well-regarded London house.