Eight years ago, Cartier reinvigorated its fine watchmaking department.  It has surprised us each year with one great complicated watch after another. This year, Cartier had a different kind of surprise: a resurrection of the Panthère de Cartier replcica, which had been discontinued in the early aughts. The fake Cartier Panthère De Cartier was the main introduction at SIHH this year, making it clear that ladies’ watches aren’t second tier in marketing strength or sales.

In fact, the reintroduction of the Panthère De Cartier replica is not all that surprising. Like the Tank, Santos, and other iconic volume collections, the copy Cartier Panthère is a bread-and-butter core collection: a sure thing in an unsteady market. With multiple references and price points, it is exactly what the market seems to call for, again, at the moment.

Originally introduced in 1983, the fake Cartier Panthère relaunch design is exactly the same as the original: square case with screws on the bezel, Roman numerals, railway track index, and a tiny Cartier logo embossed in the X digit – distinguishing it from the counterfeits. Only the bracelet construction is new – it is more supple. All the movements are quartz, which keeps the watch elegantly thin, and true to the original design, which came into being at the height of the quartz era.

The new cheap Panthère de Cartier is a full collection in three sizes with a pavé version, a lacquer and gold version, a yellow gold version – a star of the original collection – and a two-tone model.

The Santos is also an iconic square-cased Cartier watch with Roman numerals and visible screws on the bezel, and at least one person I spoke to was confused about its similarity to the copy Cartier Panthère, so it’s worth showing the Santos here for comparison. The differences are subtle. The size of the bezel and screws are much smaller on the replica Cartier Panthère than on the Santos, and the lugs are more tapered, as is the crown. And on the Santos, there is no border on the railroad track index. (Although there was a border on the index of the original Santos watch created in 1904).

The Santos was created for aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, a friend of Louis Cartier, to enable him to time his flight legs without having to take his hand off the controls to reach for his pocket watch. It was a hit in Parisian society, and Cartier launched it commercially a few years later. The Santos-Dumont’s square shape was revolutionary for its time, and thus began Cartier’s adventure into the world of shaped watches.

Although the fake Cartier Panthère volume collection was created in 1983, Cartier has been making jeweled Panther-themed watches since even before it created the Santos watch in 1904 – the only men who were wearing wristwatches at the time were soldiers in the South African Boer War, and that was because Africa’s climate was too hot for a waist coat, where a man’s pocket watch is properly kept. Cartier continues its tradition of jeweled Panther watches every year. This year, the new jewelry creations included, most notably, the Royale and the Joueuse. The replica Cartier Panthère Royale was inspired by a famous panther and sapphire brooch made by Cartier in 1949 for the Duchess of Windsor. It is designed in concentric circles set with diamonds surrounding a panther also set with diamonds and lacquer.