Collecting

July 23rd, 2021

Auction Watch – First Half 2021 Highlights

Vintage Heuer chronographs were well-represented in auctions staged by the major auction houses during the first six months of 2021.  In this posting, we’ll look at some highlights of these sales to take a measure of the market and to see what might lie ahead for the brand.  Looking at the ebbs and flows of the vintage Heuer market over the past five years,

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April 27th, 2021

TAG Heuer Dive Watches – The Oldest, the Newest and 25 of the Years in Between

I have been collecting Heuer timepieces for almost 20 years, but must confess that there is one branch of the Heuer / TAG Heuer family tree that I have never fully appreciated and, consequently, has been underrepresented in my collection.  It’s all these dive watches that began appearing in the late 1970s — the 1000 Series,

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March 4th, 2021

A Noteworthy Watch — Abercrombie & Fitch Seafarer, Ref 2446 (Screw-Back Case), to be Sold by Sotheby’s

In our May 2020 posting, Vintage Heuer – Chasing the Grails, we covered 16 watches that would be considered grails among vintage Heuer collectors.  Our working definition of a “grail” watch had three parts.  First, the model must be extremely rare.  For most of the 16 watches that we included, the diligent collector would do well to see one or two watches offered per year. 

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December 13th, 2020

$2,208,000 and Worth Every Penny of It! Today’s Record Price for a Heuer Chronograph

On Saturday, December 12, 2020, this Heuer Monaco chronograph, worn by Steve McQueen in the filming of Le Mans, was sold for $2,208,000, a record for any Heuer or TAG Heuer chronograph.  In this posting, we will consider some of the factors that contributed to this extraordinary result.

Background

Phillips held its “Racing Pulse” auction on Saturday,

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October 27th, 2020

Auction Watch – Monaco Legend Group Selling 24 Heuer Chronographs, October 31, 2020

Vintage Heuer collectors are often frustrated with the major auction houses.  We are accustomed to seeing Christie’s and Sotheby’s sprinkle a handful of vintage Heuer chronographs among the 250 watches that they will offer in an auction, and in many instances these Heuers appear to be “filler”.  Often, they are common models that are readily available on eBay or dealer sites,

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May 14th, 2020

Vintage Heuer — Chasing the Grails

I begin with a confession – I don’t really like referring to particular watches as “grails”.  Different collectors seem to use the word “grail” in different ways, with some collectors having drawers full of them and others suggesting that a real grail is unattainable.  Google the term “grail collecting”, and you will find yourself reading about the rarest and most precious baseball cards,

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July 9th, 2019

Birthdays, Anniversaries and Other Celebrations — Thoughts on TAG Heuer’s 50th Anniversary Monacos

The weekend of June 14 to June 17, 2019 was a big one for celebrations.  On Friday, June 14, TAG Heuer introduced the second in its series of five Monaco 50th Anniversary Limited Edition chronographs; on Saturday, June 15, our daughter celebrated her 21st birthday; Sunday, June 16 was Father’s Day, a four-generation celebration in our family;

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June 5th, 2019

Announcing the Winners — #Monaco50 Photo Contest, by Bamford Watch Department

This past weekend, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Heuer Monaco, @BamfordWatchDepartment and artist extraordinaire (and Heuer enthusiast) @JulieKraulis staged a photo contest for members of the community.  Approximately 100 enthusiasts posted their best photos of either vintage or modern Monacos and posted them with the #Monaco50 hashtag.

Bamford then compiled them into their Instagram story and Julie proceeded to select three winners,

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May 28th, 2019

Buyer Beware — Heuer Carrera with Fake Indianapolis Motor Speedway Logo

Between 1966 and 1968, Heuer made chronographs and stopwatches for the International Motor Speedway, with the distinctive “Wings and Wheel” Speedway logo on the dial. We see the Wings and Wheel IMS logo on the dial of five different Heuer timepieces, as follows:

  • two register Heuer Autavia chronograph (Reference 3646), with a unique silver-white dial,
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March 15th, 2019

Baselworld Preview — Are We Ready for the Three-Handed Autavia?

Last year, at Baselworld (March 2018), TAG Heuer allowed a “leak” of two Autavia prototypes.  These prototypes were different from all the Autavias that Heuer and TAG Heuer have offered, over the period since 1962, in that the two prototypes were not chronographs, but were plain, old-fashioned watches (i.e., no built-in stopwatch, but only hands to tell the time of day). 

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March 3rd, 2019

#Chronomatic50 — Updates / Thanks!!

Sunday, March 10, 2019 — 22:10 EDT (Monday, March 11, 2019 — 02:10 GMT)

It’s Sunday night here in Atlanta, toward the end of our last day of the #Chronomatic50 celebration, and I wanted to post a brief message to thank everyone who has participated in this fantastic event.

It all started in mid-January,

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February 27th, 2019

Get Ready!! #Chronomatic50 Celebration – 03.03.2019

Our #Chronomatic50 Celebration is only four days away, and the response so far has been amazing – 94 postings on Instagram under the #Chronomatic50 hashtag, and we haven’t even kicked off the real event.  This will be one fantastic celebration!!

No doubt, most of the Chronomatic enthusiasts know what to do, but just to jog some thoughts,

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