May 31st, 2018 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 own; spent a couple of evenings with my camera; tapped out the first thousand words of a posting; and seemed ready to post the definitive review of these four TAG Heuer Autavias. It was mid-March and I was half-way done with the posting . . . this was smooth sailing, all the way.
It would be a fun posting. Others have written detailed reviews of these four Autavias, but I was enthusiastic about publishing the first posting to cover all four of them, side-by-side. And I couldn’t imagine that anyone else had strapped all four models to a box level, suspended them with Magic Arms, put them under 2000 watts of light, and taken the family photo. Yes, I was excited about this posting.
The first sign of trouble came with the request from a friend at Hodinkee to borrow my vintage “Orange Boy” Autavia for a photo shoot. Suspicion morphed into alarm when the crew at Hodinkee shared a photo showing the fifth Autavia to be introduced, on May 31, 2018 — the TAG Heuer Autavia for Hodinkee, which we all know will forever be called called the “Orange Boy”. Just a few minutes ago, Hodinkee officially announced the availability of the new “Orange Boy” Autavia for Hodinkee.
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May 3rd, 2018 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 specific Heuer models, as the “Andretti”, “McQueen”, “Rindt” and “Siffert”.
Lengthen the list and widen the mountain, and Ickx, Lauda, Regazzoni and Villeneuve might be the next racers named by today’s collectors. But to make these lists is to face the problem – what are our criteria for deification? Are we looking for the best drivers? Those who wore the Heuers most often? Those who supported the brand? Or perhaps the most romantic (or tragic) figures?
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October 9th, 2017 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 the Heuer brand. A 43rd watch will be included in the sale, Serial Number 1 of a limited edition TAG Heuer being offered on the occasion of Jack Heuer’s 85th birthday, in November 2017.
Phillips is presenting this auction as the “Heuer Parade”, and has produced a magnificent printed catalog with full details and photographs of the watches. This printed catalog is presented in seven chapters, each of which presents a different aspect of Heuer’s history (for example, motor sports, race timing and military-issued watches).
The following is an overview of the 43 watches included in the “Heuer Parade”. Click on any of the thumbnails for a high resolution photograph of the watch.
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June 15th, 2017 On June 21, 2017, Christie’s will conduct a sale of “Rare Watches and American Icons”, in New York City. There are 250 lots in the sale. You can find the online catalog HERE or the eCatalog flipbook HERE.
There are 34 lots of Heuer chronographs and stopwatches in the sale, and this posting will serve as your quick guide to those watches. You can click on any of the images shown below to see a high resolution photo of the watch; alternatively, visit the gallery at the bottom of this posting, to click through each of the Heuers. After the sale, we will update this posting to show the results.
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June 13th, 2017 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 been published on Hodinkee. The posting below offers some basic information about the new Autavia, as well as some “live” photos from my first month with the watch.
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May 12th, 2017 November and December are always busy months for watch auctions, and in Fall 2016 the vintage Heuers were well represented in auctions conduced by Phillips, Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Watches of Knightsbridge. In this posting, we show the 45 Heuers that were offered in these auctions, together with their “final prices” (comprised of the hammer price plus the applicable buyer’s premium). In addition, we feature one unusual vintage Skipper, that was sold by Fellows. For readers who want to do additional research, we provide the links to all the auction catalogs.
The following image shows the six vintage Heuers that sold for the highest amounts at these Fall 2016 auctions. Prices were as follows: Top Row — Autavia, Ref 2446 (Big Subs), for $125,000; Autavia, Ref 2446 (Rindt), for $43,750; Carrera, Ref 2447 SN, for $40,480. Bottom Row — Orvis Solunagraph, for $50,600; Autavia, Ref 1163 (Orange Boy), for $50,000; and Autavia Ref 113.603 (IDF-issued), for $63,614.
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March 22nd, 2017 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, along with full details about the watch.
 The winner of the Autavia Cup, the “Jochen Rindt” Autavia, circa 1966, alongside the new 2017 Autavia. Images sized to scale, with the Rindt being 39 millimeters and the new Autavia being 42 millimeters. Read more »
March 19th, 2017 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 those who appreciate the watch’s rich history.
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February 13th, 2017 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 would be the first to see TAG Heuer’s new Autavia and, to open the Summit, Mr. Biver provided his introduction to the watch.
More than introducing the new Autavia, Mr. Biver’s remarks describe how TAG Heuer will use its unique portfolio of historic chronographs to inspire the development of new watches for the brand. His remarks introduce the new Autavia, but more importantly they introduce a new era for the TAG Heuer brand.
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November 17th, 2016 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 up a magazine or visit a mall, and we see the images of the “King of Cool”, his Porsche 917, and his racing suit and racing watch.
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November 12th, 2016 TweetPhillips, The Geneva Watch Auction FOUR, November 12 and 13, 2016
On November 12 and 13, 2016, Phillips held an auction of 196 watches, divided into two sessions. The first session, on November 12, included these four Heuer chronographs.
Final prices shown below include the hammer price plus a 25% buyer’s premium; exchange
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November 3rd, 2016 Tweet
About OnTheDash
Online since 2003, OnTheDash is the most comprehensive source of information about vintage Heuer chronographs, dashboard timers and other timepieces. OnTheDash presents images of over 500 different models and executions of vintage Heuer chronographs, and scans of over 60 original Heuer catalogs covering the period 1935 through 1985. OnTheDash also includes registries of
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July 12th, 2016 Tweet
The vintage Heuers have been hot lately, so the dynamics of supply and demand tell us that with the recent strong increases in prices, we are likely to see more vintage Heuer chronographs coming into the market. In April and May 2016, we saw Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Phillips and three other auction houses sell over 75
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May 1st, 2016 Tweet
It’s the spring auction season in the watch world, with auctions being held by Antiquorum (April 21, 2016; New York City); Phillips (May 14, 2016; Geneva); Kaplans (May 14, 2016; Stockholm); Sotheby’s (May 14, 2016; Geneva); Christie’s (May 16, 2016; Geneva); and Auctionata (May 18, 2016; Berlin). Among the hundreds of watches being sold in
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March 31st, 2016 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
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March 17th, 2016 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
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March 10th, 2016 Tweet
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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December 10th, 2015 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
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November 12th, 2015 Tweet
In a November 5, 2015 posting on the OnTheDash vintage Heuer discussion forum, one of the members of our community (Gianluca) provided a beautifully illustrated, step-by-step description showing the disassembly of a Caliber 15 chronograph movement (known as the “Chronomatic” movement). The Chronomatic was the first automatic chronograph movement, and this family of movements was
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November 3rd, 2015 Tweet
In just a few days, TAG Heuer will be releasing its newest Carrera, the Carrera Heuer 01. I recently borrowed a prototype of the Carrera Heuer 01 for a week, enjoyed the watch a lot, and can hardly wait to get this newest Carrera on my wrist. In this posting, I’ll tell you why!!
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August 18th, 2015 Tweet
I’m a big fan of Instagram. The Instagram format of square photographs and brief captions is ideal for sharing images and information about watches, and there is a rich flow of postings dedicated to both vintage and modern watches. The #VintageHeuer hashtag serves the community of vintage Heuer collectors well, and we see some amazing
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July 18th, 2015 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
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June 21st, 2015 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
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March 17th, 2015 Tweet
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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March 16th, 2015 Tweet
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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February 12th, 2015 Tweet
We launched OnTheDash on February 12, 2003, with an email message to 80 recipients. A few days ago, I received a message from one of these recipients, who I have been in touch with from time to time over the years. In his message he reminisced about the good old days, shared some thoughts about
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February 1st, 2015 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 –
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December 10th, 2014 Tweet
Today, we saw two “live” auctions of interesting vintage Heuer chronographs, a black PVD-coated Heuer Monaco, Reference 74033, and an Abercrombie & Fitch Seafarer, Reference 2443. In this posting, we’ll take a quick look at these two watches and the results of the sales. We will also take a look at a Heuer Carrera, Reference
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December 2nd, 2014 Tweet
“A Notable Watch” will be a series of postings in which we take a quick look at an interesting watch. We will start this series by republishing a message that Jeff Simon posted on our discussion forum a few weeks ago, My A&F Heuer Solunar, a Little Family History.
I purchased this watch several
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November 30th, 2014 Tweet
Last year, in the course of writing a posting covering the $95 Fossil watch worn by Alabama football coach Nick Saban, I identified and commented on the watches worn by some other prominent college football coaches – Steve Spurrier, Les Miles, Mark Richt and a few others. These gentlemen are leaders of popular football programs
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November 6th, 2014 Tweet
If you are reading this, then you probably already know the basics. The Patek Philippe Henry Graves Supercomplication watch is the most complicated watch ever produced by humans (without the aid of computers) and holds the record as the most expensive watch ever sold at auction, achieving a “hammer price” of $10 million at a
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November 3rd, 2014 Tweet
The Reader’s Guide to the Upcoming Patek Philippe Auctions
Over the next eight days, we will witness two historic auctions, in Geneva, Switzerland, that will offer for sale the most legendary Patek Philippe watches that our generation is likely to see under one (or two roofs). On Sunday, November 9, 2014, Christie’s will celebrate the
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October 23rd, 2014 Tweet
One of the special pleasures of this watch collecting hobby is that, every once in a while, we get to actually meet the wonderful people that we chat with all the time, by e-mail, on discussion forums, through Twitter and Facebook, and by telephone. Over the years, one of my favorite “pen pals” has been
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September 16th, 2014 Tweet
Of all the vintage Heuer chronographs that we see, the Monaco Reference 73663 B (three register, manual wind Monaco, with a blue dial) may win the prize for being the model with the highest percentage of fakes, refinished dials, replacement hands and other issues of authenticity. In some instances, only one element has been replaced,
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August 17th, 2014 
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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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May 29th, 2014 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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May 7th, 2014 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
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April 3rd, 2014 Tweet
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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March 26th, 2014 Tweet
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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March 19th, 2014 Tweet
With this morning’s news that celebrity watch collector John Mayer is suing celebrity watch dealer Bob Maron, for $656,000, in a dispute regarding the authenticity of some vintage Rolex watches, there came the reaction, “That’s why I don’t buy vintage watches.” While I will not suggest that any simple list of questions could have brought
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