The Cartier Santos is, by most accounts, the watch that gave men permission to wear a watch on the wrist. In 1904 Louis Cartier created it for his friend, the Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont, who complained that fishing a pocket watch from his jacket while flying was impractical. Cartier's answer, made with the watchmaker Edmond Jaeger, was a flat square case on a leather strap, with exposed screws on the bezel, Roman numerals and blued sword-shaped hands. Santos-Dumont wore it as he flew, and the design entered legend as one of the first purpose-built men's wristwatches. Cartier kept it as a private piece for years before offering it to the public from 1911 in platinum and gold.
For decades the Santos stayed a precious-metal jewel on a leather strap. The decisive reinvention came in 1978, during the quartz crisis, when Cartier executive Alain-Dominique Perrin, the force behind the Must de Cartier line, launched the Santos de Cartier (the Santos Carrée, reference 2961) in steel with gold accents and, for the first time, an integrated metal bracelet whose links echoed the bezel's signature screws. It was the first Santos in steel and a bold bet on the new luxury-sports category alongside the Royal Oak and Nautilus, and it worked. In 1987 the Santos Galbée softened the case into curved, more wearable lines, with the popular mid-size steel quartz reference 1564; the larger automatic Galbée XL (reference 2823, roughly 32mm by 45mm) followed in the mid-2000s.
The next statement arrived in 2004 with the Santos 100, marking the line's centenary with an oversized case and a thick screwed bezel. The 38mm steel automatic (reference 2656, marketed as W20073X8) carried a 1904-2004 caseback engraving for that anniversary year. The most consequential modern chapter is the 2018 relaunch of the Santos de Cartier (large WSSA0018 at 39.8mm, medium WSSA0010), with the in-house caliber 1847 MC and two genuinely useful innovations: QuickSwitch, which lets the strap be swapped without tools, and SmartLink, which lets the bracelet be sized by hand. In 2019 Cartier revived the slim, flat-cased original spirit with the hand-wound Santos-Dumont, such as the ultra-thin caliber 430 MC reference WSSA0032.
Collectors are drawn to the Santos because it is both a genuine horological first and a design that has stayed instantly recognisable for over a century: the square case, the exposed screws, the cabochon crown. There is a Santos for almost every taste, from vintage two-tone Carrée and Galbée pieces to the modern steel Santos de Cartier and the dressy Santos-Dumont.
Bedesten Watches has sold authentic Cartier Santos watches in Istanbul since 1999. From our Suadiye store in Kadikoy we regularly source vintage Santos Carrée and Galbée references as well as the modern Santos de Cartier and Santos-Dumont. Message us on WhatsApp +90 532 327 88 26 for current stock; we buy, sell and appraise, accept TRY, USD and EUR, and quote prices on request.
