The most expensive Cartier watch ever just sold for $15.6 million Hong Kong dollars, just shy of $2 million. It’s believed to be one of only three original Cartier Crash watches created in 1987, twenty years after it was first introduced. The previous holder of the title? A $1.5 million Cartier Crash from 1967 auctioned in 2022. And only a year before that, the previous most-expensive Crash hammered for $884,972. 

That’s concrete evidence that the Cartier Crash isn’t going anywhere. In fact, its stock is only going up. 

The Crash was once a little-known oddity in Cartier’s range. The novelty of its warped watchface was contained to watch-head group chats but its singular shape snatched mainstream appeal over the past few years.

For the last half-decade, Tyler, the Creator has made the Cartier Crash his signature timepiece. Jay-Z, Bad Bunny, Timothée Chalamet, and Elton John are all proud owners.

The Crash’s shape is so good that it’s crossed over to unexpected places like skater jeans and near-mythical Jordan sneakers.

This has elevated the Crash from an experimental outlier in Cartier’s lineup to one of its flagships, a genuine watch of the moment. Except the moment never ends, as the auction prices prove.

And Cartier’s appearance at Watches & Wonders 2026 shows it has plans to keep it that way. The Crash’s "melting" case is getting even crazier with the rare return of its skeletonized form, limited to a paltry 150 units.

Previous skeletonized Crashes still had something that resembled a watchface, with gaps between the roman numerals offering a peek at the movement below. The new skeletonized Crash does away with that, instead integrating the roman numerals into the inner architecture and leaving on full display all the stuff that makes horologists drool: wheels, screws, pivots.

This is the wildest version of this wild watch, but the record-shattering Crash sale proves that its lore is poised to only go that much deeper.

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