Cartier Tank Basculante Mécanique American showing construction workers and miners

showing construction workers and miners with Tudor watches strapped to their wrists—and the ads found verisimilitude in real life when members of the British North Greenland Expedition wore Tudors in 1952

But what emerged was a purpose-driven sports watch

The Constellation line was launched by Omega in 1952

in the earlier part of the 5513's run

Cartier Tank Basculante Mécanique American showing construction workers and minersThe famed Cartier Tank comes in all shapes and sizes, perhaps none of them as unique and compelling as the Basculante. With its elegant guilloch dial and unique reversible case, the Tank Basculante is unique among Cartier's Tank models. Released in 1932, a year after the Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso, it certainly shares design similarities with that famed watch: the case in which the dial is housed pivots inside an outer case, much like the Reverso's.