Cartier Tank Must Buying Guide: SolarBeat, Sizes, References and Prices | Ultimate Watch

The Tank Must is the entry door to Cartier at Ultimate Watch, and we mean that literally: it is the least expensive way to put a genuine Cartier Tank on your wrist without buying a solid gold model or hunting the vintage market. Cartier revived the name in 2021 at Watches and Wonders, borrowing it from the Must de Cartier line that saved the company during the Quartz Crisis of the late 1970s. The modern Tank Must keeps the geometry every collector recognizes: the flat brancards running down the sides of the case, the Roman numeral dial, the rail-track minute chapter, the beaded crown capped with a synthetic blue cabochon, and the blued sword hands. What changed is the metal and the price. Cartier moved the Tank Must to stainless steel and offered it three ways: a solar-powered quartz called SolarBeat, a conventional high-autonomy quartz, and a mechanical automatic in the extra-large size. We sell and buy all three across the counter at 19 West 47th Street, and the Tank Must is one of the watches we field the most questions on, usually from a first-time Cartier buyer trying to decide between the small and large SolarBeat, and from sellers who bought retail during the 2021 to 2023 waitlist rush and now want to know what it brings on the resale side.