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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
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In the Pantheon of Heuer racing gods, we are accustomed to seeing Mario Andretti, Steve McQueen Jochen Rindt and Jo Siffert at the top of the roster. Yes, if there were a Mount Rushmore of the Heuer heroes, we could expect to see these four faces. Indeed, it is fitting that collectors refer to four
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On November 11, 2017, in Geneva, Switzerland, Phillips auction house will offer for sale 42 vintage Heuer chronographs, assembled as “The Crosthwaite & Gavin Collection”. Almost all these watches span the period from the early 1960s through the mid 1970s, the period when Jack Heuer was at the helm, as the fourth generation leader of
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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
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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,
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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
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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
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There are few associations between a hero and his watch that have the enduring strength of the connection between Steve McQueen and his Heuer Monaco, worn in the film Le Mans. Introduced in 1969 and worn by McQueen in 1970, the “McQueen Monaco” has been re-issued in numerous configurations over the last 20 years. Pick
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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
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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
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On Thursday, March 10, 2016, TAG Heuer announced that the brand would launch a social media based contest, to allow enthusiasts, collectors and customers to select the model of 1960s Autavia chronograph that TAG Heuer will re-issue in 2017. This contest, called the “Autavia Cup”, will commence on March 17, at Baselworld, with the winning
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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
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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
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No, this is not Jean-Calude Biver’s first visit to the BaselWorld watch fair, but it is the first time he’ll be there as CEO of TAG Heuer. Since Biver assumed this position, TAG Heuer enthusiasts have been nervously anticipating how Biver might re-position the brand, their fears stirred by constant suggestions that TAG Heuer would
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Heuer’s Caliber 12 automatic chronographs of the 1970s are easily divided into three generations. The first generation was comprised of the three models that Heuer used to introduce its automatic chronographs in 1969 — the Autavia, Carrera and Monaco. The second generation was introduced over the period from 1971 to 1974, as Heuer developed three
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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 –
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Although today’s enthusiasts associate Heuer most closely with motorsports, over the years Heuer developed and marketed a vast array of stopwatches and chronographs for timing all sorts of sports events. Glancing at Heuer’s 1970 /71 catalog of timers and chronographs, we see timepieces for over 40 sports, ranging from bobsledding to boxing, and from
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TweetIt’s Summertime . . . Seafarer Season
The world of vintage watch collecting is marked by relatively few “seasonal” trends, but as surely as the dark skies of winter will turn to the blue of summer, vintage Heuer collectors will observe an increased interest in a certain series of watches. The watch is the Abercrombie
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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
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In the community of vintage Heuer enthusiasts, the story of how Steve McQueen came to wear a Monaco chronograph in the film Le Mans has been told many times. Indeed, Jean-Christophe Babin, ex-CEO of TAG Heuer (2001-2013) has proclaimed that “Jack [Heuer’s] greatest achievement is to have succeeded in placing a ‘Monaco’ chronograph on the
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As a vintage watch enthusiast, I will admit that our community can be tough on the companies that produce modern watches, especially when it comes to how today’s brands re-issue some of their legendary watches. If the brand is too literal in re-issuing one of its classic watches, we say that the company lacked creativity
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Of all the imagery being used to market watches, perhaps none is more overused than motorsports. Watch brands create special models that will be offered with high performance cars, they plaster their logos on racing venues, cars and drivers, and new watches pay tribute to champions, even long after they have passed away. The fact
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In a posting just prior to Baselworld 2013, we pondered the question of what the new Carrera Caliber 36 chronographs would look like. We had some excellent clues, from the “Teaser” image posted by TAG Heuer in the run-up to Basel, and were able to make some good guesses about the appearance and features of
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There have been rumors that Bo Derek wore a Heuer dive watch, but now OnTheDash is happy to share the story and the photo.
Of course, we start with the photo, taken on a beach in 1979 and provided by Bo’s father to Jack Heuer, then CEO of Heuer Leonidas.
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In yesterday’s posting, we pondered the question of what the new Carrera Caliber 36 chronographs would look like. We had some excellent clues, from the “Teaser” image posted by TAG Heuer in the run-up to Basel, and were able to make some good guesses about the appearance and features of these new chronographs.
Now that
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The BaselWorld fair, the biggest annual event in the watch world, opens on Thursday, April 25. BaselWorld 2013 promises to be especially important for TAG Heuer, as the brand continues its year-long celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Carrera and introduces new watches that will push the frontiers of “haute horologerie”.
This year’s fair
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On Monday, January 21, 2013, I attended the opening of TAG Heuer’s “50 Years of Carrera” celebration, in Geneva, and on Tuesday, January 22, I visited TAG Heuer’s Museum, archives and factory, in La Chaux-de-Fonds. I will cover these two amazing days in two separate “Scrapbook” postings, with this posting covering the Carrera celebration in
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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As described in our first posting covering the McQueen-worn Monacos, I am aware of four Heuer Monacos said to have been “worn by McQueen” during the production of the movie Le Mans, as follows:
worn by McQueen during the filming of the movie, Le Mans; sold by the property master in the early 2000s; now
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I am aware of four Heuer Monacos said to have been “worn by McQueen”, as follows:
worn by McQueen during the filming of the movie, Le Mans; sold by the property master in the early 2000s; now in the TAG Heuer Museum, in Switzerland. worn by McQueen during the still photography / promotional shots for
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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
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Our friend, Mark Moss has been writing a “History of Heuer”, which is being published on Calibre11.com. This page will provide a series of links to the installments of Mark’s articles.
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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
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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.
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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
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