Visual Description
The Ref. 0975 is the Pasha with a perpetual calendar, in 18k yellow gold. The round case is 38 mm across and 11 mm thick, with Vendôme-style lugs, a concave bezel and a screw-down cap over the crown, set with a blue sapphire cabochon and held to the case by a small chain. The crystal is sapphire, and the transparent case back is secured by eight screws.
Three subsidiary dials show the day, the date and the month with leap year, and the moon phases appear in an oval aperture at 12 o'clock. Most dials found are silver with applied baton indexes; one has painted Roman numerals, and one, cataloged by Christie's, is engine-turned mother-of-pearl. The hands are luminous blued steel lozenges. Examples are cataloged on an 18k gold Cartier link bracelet or on a leather strap with an 18k gold Cartier deployant clasp.
Reference Significance
The 0975 is an automatic Pasha perpetual calendar with a moon phase and no repeater. Catalogs record other 38 mm gold Pasha perpetual calendars: quartz ones under Ref. 30003 and Ref. 0570, an automatic one with a minute repeater under Ref. W30012, and the automatic W30026.
The W30026 is the closest. Monaco Legend dates its example to 1991 and catalogs it on a cal. 889/1, with calendar subsidiary dials, a leap-year indicator and a moon phase at 12 o'clock. No catalog found ties the W30026 and the 0975 to one reference.
Historical Context
Phillips credits the Pasha to Gérald Genta and dates its launch to 1985.
The catalogs found date the 0975 to the 1990s, and Christie's dates one example to circa 1995; a dealer dates another to around 2000. No source found gives the year the reference was introduced or discontinued.
Case numbers on the 0975s found run in M and MG series, such as M204646, MG222080 and MG237067. The W30026 of 1991 carries a four-digit case number, 0505.
What to Look For
Read the case back for 0975 and a case number in an M or MG series. Monaco Legend writes the reference as 975, and Antiquorum's catalogs of 2006 to 2016 print the case number as the reference and 0975 as the number.
Look at the movement through the transparent back and ask for photographs of it. Antiquorum gives the Cal. 039 on a Jaeger-LeCoultre 889/1 base, and Monaco Legend a cal. 889/2 with 36 jewels.
Check that the day, date, month, leap-year and moon phase indications are set correctly and advance together, that the cap over the crown screws down with its cabochon and chain in place, and that the clasp is Cartier's, in 18k gold. Christie's has cataloged one with a Cartier presentation box with a winding mechanism, an International Guarantee Certificate and an adjustment tool.
