1-of-1 Cartier Cheich Smashes Record at $3.4M

A unique white gold Cartier Cheich commissioned in 2010 sold for $3.4 million at Sotheby's Hong Kong, becoming the most expensive Cartier wristwatch ever auctioned.

The 38mm watch pairs an 18k white gold case and white dial with a quartz movement and brown Cartier leather strap — a spec sheet that, as duPont REGISTRY notes, was never the point. The value lies in its singularity: the piece was marked No. 1 of 1 and made in 2010 as a special commission for longtime Cartier collector Giorgio Seragnoli, never intended as a commercial model or series.

The Cheich's story traces back to the 1980s, when Cartier sponsored the brutal Paris-Dakar desert rally. Starting in 1983, the maison ran the Cartier Challenge, offering a wristwatch as a trophy to any racer who could win the rally in consecutive years. Rather than a conventional trophy design, Cartier looked to the Tuareg people of the Sahara, whose distinctive blue headscarves — cheichs — gave the watch its name and instantly recognizable shape. Motorcycle racer Gaston Rahier became the first and only recipient after winning the 1984 and 1985 races. According to duPont REGISTRY, the challenge ended after Paris-Dakar founder Thierry Sabine died in a helicopter accident in 1986.

Only four Cheich watches were originally made during the 1980s, which is why duPont REGISTRY calls the model so difficult to track down. One was made for the men's competition and another for the women's, while a third, created for Thierry Sabine, has since disappeared; the fourth was intended for a winner who never came along. Rahier's original surfaced at Sotheby's in 2022 and sold for more than €1 million, while two other examples remain in Cartier's archives. That leaves the 2010 Seragnoli commission as a technically fifth Cheich — a one-off sequel to a trophy history that officially ended decades ago, combining motorsport provenance with extreme rarity.

The Cheich's result lands amid a broader surge in collector categories at the major auction houses. The Art Newspaper reports that Christie's will stage its second anime and manga auction in New York this October after its March sale, Anime Starts Here, brought in $1.4m including fees — more than four times its low estimate — with 35% of buyers identified by the auction house as Millennials or Gen Z. The Art Newspaper frames such collectibles sales as increasingly important for auction houses while fine art sales have been stagnant. As duPont REGISTRY puts it, after decades of barely being seen, the Cheich's $3.4 million result has finally put a number on how much that history is worth.