The Cartier Cheich – a legendary timepiece and one of only four ever made – could rake in $400,000 at Sotheby’s Paris next month, IDEX Online reports. It is estimated at $200,000 to $400,000.
It was given to Belgian motocross driver Gaston Rahier, who won the grueling Paris-Dakar Rally across the Sahara Desert in 1984 and 1985. Rahier died in 2005, and his relatives are now offering the watch for sale. There are three more Cartier Cheich watches – two were retained by Cartier, and one Thierry Sabine, founder of the Paris-Dakar Rally. It is considered lost after Sabine died in a helicopter crash in Mali in 1986.
The Cartier Cheich has a dial framed by a gold ‘cheich’ design, “inspired by the cloth worn around the head by the Tuareg people of the Sahara to protect them from the sun.”
