The short answer
The real Cartier Tank Must Cor de Chasseur is a two-hand quartz watch. No seconds hand, no date, no "Automatic" text on the dial. If you see a ticking second hand or a date window, the watch in front of you is a replica and you can stop there.
Everything else worth checking comes down to four things: the green, the thickness, the crystal, and the printing. Get those in your head and you can size up most fakes in under a minute.
What the genuine watch is
The Tank Must replaced the Tank Solo in the Cartier lineup, and it is a quartz watch with a lacquered dial. The cor de chasseur version takes the standard Tank Must case and gives it a deep, muted green dial instead of the silvered one. The bones are the same across the line.
- Steel case, 33.7 x 25.5 mm on the large model, 29.5 x 22 mm on the small
- Quartz movement from the Cartier 157 family, hours and minutes only
- Flat lacquer dial, no sunray brushing under the surface
- Sapphire crystal, cabochon set into the crown, water resistance marked 3 bar
- Thin, under 7 mm, and it slides under a cuff without a fight
The green is the biggest giveaway
Cor de chasseur is a muddy, dark green. In photos it reads closer to olive than to anything bright, and it shifts depending on the light hitting it. Replicas miss this. They use a cleaner, more saturated green because it photographs better, and it is the wrong color.
Two things to look at. First, does the dial go flat and slightly dead at an angle, or does it sparkle? A lacquer dial has depth but no sparkle. Second, check the edges. On a real one the color sits level right up to the numeral printing. On cheap fakes you will often see a wavy or lighter ring near the edge where the coating thinned out.
Case and crystal
Thickness is the tell nobody talks about. Fakes of the Tank Must usually run 1 to 2 mm thicker than the real thing, because the case has to swallow a movement and battery holder that do not fit the original profile. That does not sound like much. On the wrist it looks like a different watch, and the lugs sit higher off the skin.
Look at the crystal too. Genuine sapphire has a crisp, nearly invisible edge and shows very little reflection at an angle. Mineral glass, which is what most budget fakes use, goes grey and hazy when you tilt it toward a window. If the crystal looks like it has a film on it, that is not dirt.
Then the crown. The cabochon should be a smooth dome set into the crown, translucent, with a clean edge where it meets the metal. Fakes glue on a plastic bead that sits proud of the crown and reads opaque from every angle.
Dial printing and hands
The Cartier script is a specific weight and slant. Replicas make it heavier and rounder, and the tail of the "C" loses its taper. Roman numerals should be crisp with clean corners; fakes look thickened, as if the ink bled.
"SWISS MADE" at the bottom should be small, evenly spaced and sitting below the VI. On fakes it is often too large, or crowded up against the numeral.
Hands are blued steel on most Tank references. Blued steel changes tone as you rotate the watch. Painted blue hands stay the same flat color no matter how you turn them, and that is what most replicas use.
The back and the strap
Caseback engraving on the real thing is shallow, sharp and consistent. Fakes engrave deeper and heavier, and the text wanders or sits off center. The reference number on the back has to match the dial colorway. A silvered-dial reference on a green dial is a mix-and-match fake.
Straps and bracelets are a weaker signal because people swap them, but stock leather should be thin, stiff at first, and evenly stitched. Fakes ship with thick, soft leather that feels like a belt.
A quick field checklist
- No seconds hand, no date. Instant fail if either is present.
- Dial is dark, muted green. Bright green is wrong.
- Case is thin, under 7 mm.
- Crystal stays clear at a 45 degree angle.
- Cabochon is a smooth, translucent dome set flush.
- Hands change tone as you tilt the watch.
- Printing is light, sharp and spaced properly.
Worth knowing before you compare
Here is the awkward part about this model. The genuine Tank Must is quartz, and quartz clones keep time just as well as the original. You cannot judge it by accuracy or by the feel of the movement. Everything rides on the case, the dial and the finishing.
The other thing is price context. The real watch is affordable by luxury standards, which means the market for fakes of it sits mostly in the cheap tier. High-end clones of this reference exist but are far less common than they are for, say, a Submariner. If someone shows you a Tank Must clone with the right case thickness and the right dial color, that is unusual, and it is the first thing to verify rather than the last.