Time, speed, and style all came together with the Concorde-branded Cartier Tank Must, sold exclusively aboard Air France’s supersonic aircraft. Yes, one of aviation’s most unusual souvenirs also had an equally unusual sales channel 60,000 feet in the air. Talk about fast sales. It happened at a speed of Mach 2. You could take off from JFK, spot the Cartier Tank in the catalog, and before you could even decide if you wanted to buy it, you were already touching down at Paris Charles de Gaulle. What is amusing here is that while the Concorde was the epitome of luxury, the Les Must de Cartier line was not the most luxe.
In 1977, Cartier was struggling, so it launched the line using gold-plated sterling silver to make its watches more affordable, shared Bosshunting. What it didn’t compromise on was design and the way these watches were sold in one of the most elite, expensive, and least democratic environments imaginable. Shopping at twice the speed of sound was an absurdly opulent affair where passengers browsed a highly curated catalog offering Boucheron jewelry and Montblanc pens while sipping Perrier-Jouët champagne.
On this version of Cartier’s instantly recognisable Tank, a black dial carried gold-colored Roman numerals, a railway minute track, sword-shaped hands, and the Concorde name with Air France’s tricolor emblem near 6 o’clock. The classic blue sapphire cabochon crown remained a signature touch. The timepieces were offered in two sizes for men (24 x 31mm) and women (21 x 28mm), and even a third, quartz version, about 23.5 x 30 mm in size. Most examples at auction are hand-wound with a Cartier-signed caliber on an ETA 2512 base.
Rarity, though, is not what makes this watch special. Early Tanks were genuinely scarce, with only around 2,200 produced before 1965, but the Must line was built for volume and turned the Tank into one of the most familiar watches in the world. What sets the Concorde version apart is where it was sold, not how many were made. A French aviation account recalls an onboard price of 2,200 francs around 1981, roughly $400 to $500 at the time. Decades later, an unworn example, still in its box with its warranty card, fetched over $9,000 at an Osenat auction in December 2025, more than five times its high estimate.
Note – At the time of this writing, a Rolex Air-King sells for around $8,000.
