Tank Normale 78092

The Tank Normale ref. 78092 stands among the most discreet expressions of Cartier’s design language. In white gold, and in its scarce Mark II execution, it reveals a level of rarity seldom encountered in the vintage catalogue.

The Mark II is distinguished by its crown, set with a short and sharp-cut cabochon sapphire that rises subtly above the gold beading; an evolution from the flatter stone of the earliest production. Its serial number falls squarely within the range associated with Mark II dials and case configurations, confirming its place in this transitional period of the model’s history.

On the dial, all is as it should be: crisp white surface, bold Roman numerals, inner minute track, and the Cartier Paris signature above six o’clock. No hidden signature interrupts the typography, as this discreet anti-counterfeiting detail only appears from the Mark III generation onward. The result is a dial that remains clean, balanced, and unmistakably of its time.

Blued sword hands complete the composition, catching the light against the lacquered surface. Inside ticks the hand-wound caliber 78-1, the reliable Swiss ébauche chosen for the Normale series during Cartier’s 1970s revival.

Produced in the mid-1970s, this watch embodies the short-lived period when Cartier, newly consolidated in Switzerland, reintroduced its historic designs with small but telling refinements. With fewer than a thousand white-gold examples believed to have been made, and only a fraction surviving in Mark II form, it represents one of the rarest executions of the Tank Normale.