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Tweet Writing about watches (or just about anything else) can be frustrating. In February, I was excited about the four Autavias that TAG Heuer has introduced over the past year, and have two of them in my collection. I wanted to write a review of all four models, so I borrowed the two that I didn’t Read more ;raquo Tweet TAG Heuer introduced its new Autavia in March 2017, at Baselworld, and the watch is now available worldwide through TAG Heuer dealers. I purchased my new Autavia in May, and have provided my impressions of the watch — through the first eight days on the wrist — in an interview with Stephen Pulvirent, which has Read more ;raquo Tweet On March 10, 2016, TAG Heuer announced that it would re-issue the Autavia in 2017, and that it would stage the “Autavia Cup” competition for enthusiasts to select the vintage Autavia that would inspire the new model. This morning, 377 days after this announcement, TAG Heuer has released the first images of the new Autavia, Read more ;raquo Tweet Three days from now, on March 23, 2017, TAG Heuer will introduce its new Autavia, at the Baselworld show. Today, we provide the essential background information to introduce the newest member of the TAG Heuer family. While we are confident that the new Autavia will stand on its own, it may look even better to Read more ;raquo Tweet On September 11 through 13, 2016, TAG Heuer hosted its first Collectors Summit of the Jean-Claude Biver era, at company headquarters in Switzerland. To open the Summit, Mr. Biver (CEO of TAG Heuer and President of the LVMH Watch Division) welcomed the Summit participants at the Hotel Palafitte, in Nauchatel. The following day, Summit participants Read more ;raquo Tweet By Rich Crosthwaite and Jeff Stein Images by Paul Gavin/heuerworld.com On March 10, 2016, TAG Heuer announced that it would re-issue the Autavia in 2017, with enthusiasts selecting the model to be re-issued from among 16 choices dated 1962 through 1969. There is great interest in these “Early Autavias”, and at the request Read more ;raquo Tweet Today, TAG Heuer has launched the Autavia Cup competition, a month-long event in which enthusiasts will cast votes to determine which Autavia the company will re-issue in 2017. The competition consists of a series of head-to-head, knock-out matches, in which each winning model will advance to the next round of the competition. Sixteen Autavias are Read more ;raquo Tweet Once upon a time, there was a brilliant architect, who designed residences and had also planned and built many successful communities. Many years ago, he began work on what would be his most ambitious project, a futuristic community of over 300 houses, apartments and townhouses, that would also include parks, shops and other facilities for Read more ;raquo Tweet The Autavia Chronograph Heuer introduced the “Autavia” dashboard timer in 1933, with this 12-hour stopwatch designed to be mounted on the dashboard / panel of an automobile or airplane (thus the name is derived from the words “AUTomobile” and “AVIAtion”). Heuer introduced the Autavia chronograph in 1962, making it the first Heuer chronograph to have Read more ;raquo Tweet Looking at the world of vintage Heuer chronographs, most of the action centers around three models — the Autavia, the Carrera and the Monaco. Over the years from 1962 into the mid-1980s, there were over 200 executions and variations of these three models, ranging from manual-winding two-register chronographs, to more complicated GMT models, to quartz Read more ;raquo Tweet For years, Heuer collectors have stared at the image – its shows three Heuer chronographs, each bearing only the Heuer shield at the top of the dial and the word “Chronomatic” at the bottom of the dial. There are no model names on the dials, but the Heuer enthusiasts know exactly what they are – Read more ;raquo Tweet Our vintage Heuer community has been online for over a decade now. We have assembled thousands of images, created reference tables covering hundreds of models, and written articles, blogs, books and forum postings covering the most intricate (and obscure) details of the vintage Heuers. Sometimes, we may convince ourselves that there is little remaining to Read more ;raquo Tweet Pawn Stars is an American “reality” television show that presents events occurring at the World Famous Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Episodes typically feature customers coming into the shop with a rare or collectible item (or perhaps something entirely worthless), and negotiating with the shops owners / employees to sell or Read more ;raquo Tweet Watch freaks are . . . well, come to think of it, “freaks” is a pretty good way to describe them. And surely one of the most bizarre habits of the watch freaks is “watch spotting”. Watch freaks watch (and re-watch) movies and TV shows, and put their 10X loupes on the weekly issue of Read more ;raquo Tweet Heuer introduced the Autavia chronograph in 1962, as its first 1960s chronograph to feature a model name (“Autavia” being a combination of “AUTomobile” and “AVIAtion”). The Autavia would be followed by the legendary Carrera in 1963 and Monaco in 1969, as well as numerous new models in the 1970s (Montreal, Silverstone, Daytona, Monza, etc.). With Read more ;raquo Tweet For vintage watch collectors, the difference between a “grail” watch and an ordinary watch is often a matter of small details. The texture of the paint, the length of a hash mark, the style of the serifs or the aging of the lume can all affect the collectability and value of a vintage watch. The Read more ;raquo Tweet We sometimes puzzle about the smallest details of the vintage Heuers, from the shape of the serifs to the grain in the “midnight blue” paint. We often construct theories — or even guess — as to why certain elements were changed, from one execution of a watch to the next. But every once in a Read more ;raquo Tweet On August 14, 2012, Hodinkee.com published an article that I authored covering the history of the Heuer / Viceroy Autavia promotion — “How the Number Three Cigarette in America Made Heuer a Household Name“. This posting will provide links to additional resources and information relating to the Viceroy Autavias. Galleries of Viceroy Autavias – Our Read more ;raquo Tweet This post is supplementary to Jeff’s article on the Heuer / Viceroy Autavia promotion, which has been published on the Hodinkee website. In this post, I use dates and figures from Jeff’s article and attempt to reference those against serial numbers to provide further context. The First Three Batches of Reference 1163 Autavia Cases. There Read more ;raquo Tweet Heuer made two executions of its Autavia Reference 2446C (compressor) snap-back case and although these cases may — at a glance — appear to be identical, upon closer inspection we see that they are very different in their construction. The differences between seemingly similar watches become even more numerous when the Autavia 2446C case houses Read more ;raquo Tweet Paul Gavin is one of our regular contributors to OnTheDash, and most of us consider Paul to be our very best photographer. Paul displays his beautiful photographs on his website HeuerWorld.com, and you can read more about Paul over there. Recently, during a rainy weekend in the south of England, Paul spent some time producing Read more ;raquo Tweet “Leap Day” (February 29th) is a special day that only occurs every four years. Watch guys who own perpetual calendars marvel as the “29” arrives at midnight; 24 hours, they are even more impressed when the date moves to “1”. This year, I marked Leap Day by playing hooky from work — traveling to New Read more ;raquo Tweet Yesterday, on the TZ-UK Watch Talk discussion forum, I posted a photo showing four versions of the Heuer Autavia, Reference 1163, each with a black dial. A reader of that forum (under the name “even neve”) posted a message, stating, “Very nice – but don’t see the point in having four watches looking all the Read more ;raquo Tweet In 1972, the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company ran a promotion through which customers could purchase a Heuer Autavia chronograph for $88, with proof of purchase of a carton of Viceroy cigarettes (which consisted of 1o packs). At that time, Autavia chronographs were being sold for $200, through the normal dealer channel. Read more ;raquo Tweet A few months ago, we had a posting about a very rare Chronomatic Carrera that had been destroyed by a local jeweler. The jeweler had the dial refinished, thinking that the customer would be pleased to have a nice fresh coat of paint, rather than the aged dial of the original watch. I would estimate Read more ;raquo Tweet Two popular versions of the Heuer Autavia from the 1970s, the Reference 1163T (known as the “Siffert” model) and the Reference 1163V (known as the “Viceroy” model), are distinctive among vintage chronographs in having rotating tachymeter bezels. So it came as no surprise when one of our readers asked about the “functional benefit” of having Read more ;raquo Tweet The Skippers bear several similarities to the Seafarers: (a) they are colorful, (b) they are intended to be worn for boating, fishing or other water-related activities, and (c) saddest of all — like the hermit crabs we see at the beach — they never had shells (cases) of their own. You see, the poor Skipper Read more ;raquo |