May 12th, 2013 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 these new chronographs.
Now that TAG Heuer has introduced the the Carrera Calibre 36 at Basel, and released photographs and specifications, we can provide an introduction to these chronographs. We will begin with a description of the watches, and then explore some Heuer history, to understand the origins of these watches and place them in the context of Heuer’s heritage.
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April 30th, 2013 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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April 25th, 2013 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 TAG Heuer has released photographs and descriptions of the new Carrera Calibre 36 chronographs, we can provide a quick introduction to these chronographs. Initially, we will post only a few photos of the new chronographs with brief descriptions, and we will soon add some background and more detailed descriptions to this posting.
Three Versions of the Carrera Calibre 36 “Flyback” Chronograph
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April 23rd, 2013 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 will also mark the last Basel fair for TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Christophe Babin, as he will soon depart to become CEO of Bulgari. Since his arrival at TAG Heuer 13 years ago, Babin has focused on Heuer’s unique heritage in motorsports and its accomplishments in precision timing. We can expect to see more of both these themes in the watches TAG Heuer will introduce at Basel.
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March 12th, 2013 I have been on Twitter for around three years — which probably makes me something of an old-timer in that world — and have also been a strong advocate of Twitter for people who collect watches. A recent posting on our discussion forum, and the responses to that posting, have left me thinking about the real benefits for watch collectors. In the spirit of Twitter, I will keep the “bullet items” brief.
Benefits of Twitter for watch collectors and enthusiasts:
- Find Watches Listed for Sale: Increasingly, retailers and individual sellers are using Twitter to list watches for sale. Because Twitter is so quick and easy, it may be the very first channel in which a watch is listed. In other words, a retailer prepares a “For Sale” listing on its website, then “Tweets” the listing. Read more »
February 28th, 2013 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 People magazine, all in an effort to determine the watches that the actors, actresses, celebrities, athletes and politicians are wearing.
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January 30th, 2013 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 Geneva and a second posting covering the visit to TAG Heuer’s headquarters. In addition to these Scrapbook postings, I will also post more detailed write-ups covering specific interviews, watches and experiences.
The Celebration – 50 Years of Carrera
There are two major watch exhibitions each year, January in Geneva and March (or April this year) in Basel. TAG Heuer chose to launch its “50 Years of Carrera” celebration in Geneva, on January 21. Hey, if you’re going to have a year-long celebration, better to start in January than in April!
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December 5th, 2012 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 TAG Heuer not having an Autavia in its current model line, we could not expect that the company would celebrate the 50th Birthday of the Autavia during 2012. Still, in this era of crowd sourcing, crowd funding, flash mobs, Facebook, Twitter and discussion forums, we realized that the community of vintage Heuer collectors should not let 2012 draw to a close without staging its own 50th Birthday Celebration for the Autavia.
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November 18th, 2012 I’m a big fan of Twitter, and believe that it is an especially worthwhile channel for watch collectors. “Readers” can keep up with news in the watch world and find interesting postings and articles, as soon as they are published. “Writers” can Tweet when they have published new blog postings, webpages, articles or even messages on discussion forums. In terms of finding watches to purchase, there are several reliable dealers who post notices whenever they list interesting watches for sale, and we are seeing more watches sell very quickly by means of Twitter.
On a couple of occasions, folks have asked me “Who are the best people to follow on Twitter?”, and there was recently a thread on a leading discussion forum, in which participants listed their favorite people to follow in the world of watches. Accordingly, I believe that it will be useful to publish a list of “recommended” people to follow on Twitter.
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November 7th, 2012 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 10x loupe has become standard equipment for examining the rare ones; sometimes, we need the extra power of a microscope, just to be sure. We showed you how little details can make a difference in the Black PVD Heuer Monaco.
It’s not so nuanced, however, for those pursuing the rarest of the vintage Heuer chronographs. There is one word — located at the top dead center of the dial — that evidences the rarest of the rare in the world of vintage Heuers. The word “Chronomatic” alerts the collector that he or she has found the ultimate vintage Heuer chronograph. In this posting, we will consider where the origins of the word “Chronomatic” and provide an overview of the four (or five) models that bear this special designation.
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October 16th, 2012 With Felix Baumgartner’s amazing “Mission to the Edge of Space” having been completed this past Sunday, October 14th, the last few days have been very exciting for those interested in space exploration, daredevils, or chronographs. There has been an amazing flow of website updates, videos, articles, blog postings, press releases, press conferences, Tweets and all other manner of communication. Of course, the watch freaks are proud of the fact that Zenith was one of the sponsors of the mission and Baumgartner and his team have been wearing Zenith El Primero Stratos Flyback Striking 10th chronographs. [You can read all about the Zenith Stratos Flyback, in this Hodinkee posting.]
Today, I received some images in a press kit from Zenith, which I want to share with our readers. As you might imagine, these images do a great job of showing the connection between Felix and his Zenith El Primero chronograph, especially immediately after the landing. I hope that you will enjoy these photos! Click on any of them for a high resolution version (1,550 pixels wide).
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October 11th, 2012 
The community of vintage Heuer enthusiasts is a great place to be right now. Over the past two years, the community has celebrated Heuer’s 150th anniversary, high profile auctions, the publication of books, blogs and websites, and even the discovery of new models. Prices for the old Heuers have been strong, even through the depths of the global recession, with vibrant public and private markets.
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September 6th, 2012 Bill Clinton addressed the Democratic Convention last night, and soon after he started speaking, I started receiving e-mail messages asking “What’s that watch that Bill Clinton is wearing?” Clinton has a nice collection of watches, and I am familiar with a few that he has worn over the years (AP, Panerai, etc.), but I had never seen him wearing this watch.
A bit of quick research this morning has confirmed that Clinton was wearing the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Compressor Diving Alarm Navy SEALs watch. [Here's a link to a forum on which this was discussed.]
 Photo: Harry E. Walker/MCT via Getty Images Read more »
August 26th, 2012 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 while, we receive some rock-solid information that explains one of these changes. Shown below is an e-mail message that I received explaining why the little red chronograph needles on one execution of the Autavia Reference 1163 GMT were changed to little black needles.
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August 13th, 2012 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 OnTheDash Galleries shows samples of the early Reference 1163 Viceroy Autavia from every angle, as well as the later Reference 11630 Viceroy Autavia.
 
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August 13th, 2012 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 are three clear batches of automatic Autavias before we routinely start seeing the characteristics of the watches sold through the Viceroy promotion.
At launch in 1969, ranges are clearly defined for the three launch models (Autavia, Carrera and Monaco). It is worth noting that the allocated ranges also allow for numbers of manual watches in each of the ranges too (2446s in the case of the Autavia, 73353/73453/73653 Carreras and the 73633 Monacos).
The Autavias range from 141xxx through 143xxx, Chronomatic dials only appearing in the 141xxx part of that range. White dials with black registers (aka “Sifferts”) dominate the Chronomatic dials but the mix between these and black dialled MHs tends to even out as serials get deeper into the range, with dials now marked “Automatic Chronograph”.
 
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July 29th, 2012 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 in the TAG Heuer Museum, in Switzerland.
- worn by McQueen during the still photography / promotional shots for Le Mans; sold by the property master in the early 2000s; has been in the hands of four different collectors since then; to be auctioned July 31, 2012.
- worn by McQueen while at Le Mans and then given by McQueen to his management consultant, Bill Maher, as a gift; sold at an Antiqourum auction in June 2009, and now in private hands.
- worn by McQueen . . . further details not known, at least for the moment.
We started this series of postings with “Part Three” — the third Monaco listed above, the one given as a gift by Steve McQueen to his business consultant, and sold at auction in June 2009. Today, we publish “Part Two” of the series — the second Monaco listed above, the one worn by McQueen during the still photography / promotional shots for the movie Le Mans.
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July 27th, 2012 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 Le Mans; sold by the property master in the early 2000s; has been in the hands of four different collectors since then; to be auctioned July 31, 2012.
- worn by McQueen while at Le Mans and then given by McQueen to his management consultant, Bill Maher, as a gift; sold at an Antiqourum auction in June 2009, and now in private hands.
- worn by McQueen . . . further details not known, at least for the moment.
The story of the “worn-by-McQueen” Monacos is mysterious, with conflicting versions of the facts and as many twists and turns as the Le Mans circuit. Thus it is fitting that we start this series of postings with “Part Three” — the third Monaco listed above, the one given as a gift by Steve McQueen to his business consultant, and sold at auction in June 2009.
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July 8th, 2012 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 the Autavia GMT chronograph, as Heuer used multiple varieties of dials and hands on the GMTs.
This posting is derived from a discussion forum posting by Paul Gavin, in which he shows us the 10 differences between two of these Autavia 2446C GMT chronographs. Huge thanks to Paul for this discussion forum posting, as well as his assistance in preserving it in the form of this blog posting.
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June 24th, 2012 The following is a cheat sheet / quick guide covering some of the early Zenith El Primero chronographs. This posting is derived from a posting by LouS on the Chronocentric vintage Heuer discussion forum. Click on any image to see a high resolution version. Sincere thanks to LouS for sharing the information and images.
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May 13th, 2012 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 some “art photos”, different in style from his usual more realistic photos. Paul posted links to these photos in a message on our discussion forum, and he has given us permission to give these art photos a more permanent home here. Accordingly, this page shows the six art photos that Paul posted on our forum (five Heuers and one Zenith), as well as two other photos that I especially admire (both manual-wind Carreras).
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May 2nd, 2012 Folklore has it that during a pre-delivery test run on the autostrada in January 1975, this 1974 Lamborghini Countach LP400 ‘Periscopa Speciale’ (chassis number 1120056) achieved a speed of 202 miles per hour (326 kph), making it the first production road car to break the 200 MPH mark. While today’s consensus dismisses the 200 MPH claim, this Countach can stake a legitimate claim of being the fastest road car in the world, at that time.
The car had been specially ordered by Albert Silvera, a wealthy car collector living in Haiti who was a VIP customer of both Lamborghini and Ferrari. One of the items that Silvera specified for his Countach was a pair of Heuer Rally Master dash-mounted timepieces, consisting of a matching 8-day Master Time clock and a 12-hour Monte Carlo stopwatch.
This is a brief overview of the Silvera Countach, with a focus on the Heuer timepieces that were factory-installed, upon Mr/ Silvera’s request.
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April 24th, 2012 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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March 15th, 2012 “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 York City to take care of a couple of non-work related matters. I mean, in most years (or 75% of them, to be precise), 28 days are enough for February, so I decided to end February 2012 on the 28th and declare the 29th to be a free day . . . off the calendar.
During the course of the day, I saw a “Watch You Wearing” message on our discussion forum, so I decided to take some wrist shots, all along the way. [I usually don't take wrist-shots, but maybe I will make an exception every February 29th.]
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March 5th, 2012 The following is from a discussion forum posting by Paul Gavin; sincere thanks to Paul for allowing us to post his words and photos here.
Inspired by some posts on TZUK I got it into my head that I needed a suitable watch storage case. I started with 3 small aluminium cases bought off ebay that carried 12 watches each but then I found a really cool bigger case so as one does, I replaced the 3 smaller ones with one big one. So here is a quick guide to making a watch storage case.
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February 14th, 2012 If you have ever been mad at yourself for selling a watch at a price that turned out to be a shade too low, consider the case of Morry Barmak, owner of “Collector Studio”, a gallery of motorsports art and memorabilia located in Toronto, Canada. Morry recently had the good fortune of selling Steve McQueen’s Le Mans racing suit for $155,000, and then watching his buyer “flip” it for $984,000, three and one-half months later.
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January 27th, 2012 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 same. Maybe you could mod some of them ?” Well, that would be an interesting idea . . . “modding” (modifying) a vintage Autavia. Two of the watches have the same polished steel hands, so perhaps I would replace one set with some bright orange or red hands? Three of them have the same black Minutes / Hours (MH) bezel, so perhaps I could find a more colorful bezel for one of them, perhaps something in the “Pepsi” colors? Four stainless steel cases? Maybe one of them would look nice in black PVD.
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December 23rd, 2011 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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December 14th, 2011 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 that this little surprise for the customer took the value of this watch from something like $5,000 to $7,000 to around $1,000. [In understanding these values, I should also mention that the movement had been replaced, but we don't know exactly when that occured . . . perhaps another little "surprise" from a jeweler!]
Today, we see an eBay listing for an Autavia that started life (in 1970) as a 1163 MH and — through the work of a service center — the watch has ended up as nothing but a mess.
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November 5th, 2011 On November 3, 2011, Rich Crosthwaite — one of our Monaco experts — posted a message on our discussion forum regarding the Carrera Chronomatic dial shown immediately below. While our community had seen a handful of Chronomatic Carrera chronographs, all these had a gray-blue dial, with white registers, we had never seen a Chronomatic Carrera in the white-on-white design.
 
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September 22nd, 2011 Watch collectors are different. While most people watch movies for entertainment, for escape, or even for information, a “watch guy” may watch an entire movie for the sake of identifying the various watches worn by members of the cast. Of course there are the famous ones, the watches worn by James Bond, Sylvester Stallone and the high-profile Hollywood ambassadors, but the “sightings” are also fun . . . spotting Lady Gaga in her Casio Baby-G or Jerry Seinfeld in a vintage Heuer Autavia (in place of his usual Breitling).
And so, with the release of the movie Moneyball on Friday, September 23rd, the “watch watchers” — and Brad Pitt watchers — will soon ask the question, “What watch is Brad Pitt wearing in Moneyball?”.
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August 11th, 2011 We have added a new section to OnTheDash, to show the Instruction booklets for the chronographs, stopwatches and dashboard timers.
Here are the first eight booklets that we have added. Click on any of the covers, to see the Instruction booklet.
   
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August 7th, 2011 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 a rotating tachymeter bezel on a chronograph. He asked, “ . . . would one ever rotate the Tachy bezel?” A simple question . . . exactly seven words.
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July 8th, 2011 With the listing for sale this morning of four Heuer chronographs powered by the 28,800 movements, it seems timely for me to assemble what I know about these movements into a posting. I have done some research into these movements, involving experts from the era when they were produced (say, circa 1970), current personnel at TAG Heuer and another collector who owns a watch powered by a 28800 movement. I had planned to conduct a lot more research, and then publish a comprehensive webpage on these movements . . . for better or worse, let me publish the information that I have assembled (as of July 8, 2011 . . . I suppose that completion of this project will be like finishing so many other projects in the queue . . . maybe it will happen / maybe it won’t.
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July 2nd, 2011 Every once in a while, I receive a message from someone who is very excited to have recently purchased a “New Old Stock” chronograph, but is — at the same time — disappointed that the beautiful watch of thier dreams either (a) is not running properly (or is not running at all), or (b) has just been diagnosed as needing an expensive servicing. The questions vary: Why does a New Old Stock watch need servicing? Isn’t a New Old Stock watch supposed to be perfect? Why didn’t the seller tell me that the watch needed an overhaul? The final gasp is to the effect that the purchaser paid top dollar for a NOS watch, and they never contemplated that they would need to invest an extra $500 to $700, just to get the watch to run. How can this have happened?
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June 30th, 2011 Let’s play a game with the TAG Heuer Monaco 24, as follows: Let’s say that you collect vintage Heuer chronographs, primarily the racing chronographs from the 1960s and 1970s (Autavia, Carrera, Monaco, Silverstone, Montreal, etc.). You are a committed collector, who enjoys the style and history of these watches, as well as the fact that they are reliable timepieces that you can wear on a daily basis.
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June 29th, 2011 A couple of days ago, over on our discussion forum, David Howlett posted the question, “If you could only have three Heuers in your collection, what would they be?” This kind of question comes up from time to time, in a variety of formulations, so rather than posting my response on the forum, let me do a quick posting here, so that this response will have a more permanent home.
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June 18th, 2011 The following is a message posted on the Horological Meandering discussion forum, by Marv, on June 14, 2011, addressing the question of why certain watches bear the marking, “Fab. Suisse”.
There was a French law (Art 15. de la loi du 11 janvier 1892) that said that it was prohibited to import into France any product whose brand, name, sign or mark could mislead the consumer, in the sense that it could be understood as having been produced in France whereas it was not the case.
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June 14th, 2011 Day One – Monday, June 13, 2011
One of the neat things about this vintage watch collecting hobby is that there is always something new to explore, some mystery to try to solve. We see a number in a catalog (1163P), some strange mark on a movement (SX) or dial (T), and rather than letting it go, every once in a while, there is the sudden urge to unravel the mysteries of the mid-20th century.
And so it was on the morning of June 13, 2011, when a forum participant posted a photo of his Carrera 45 Dato, seeking information about the year of production for the watch. That question was relatively easy, but suddenly I focused on two words written on the dial, comprised of nine letters, that I had seen hundreds of times before, but never bothered to explore . . . the words, “Fab. Suisse” (the abbreviation for the French term “Fabrique Suisse”, meaning “produced in Switzerland”).
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May 27th, 2011 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 had to find a home in the case of the 1960s Carrera, as well as a progression of Autavias (borrowing from the References 7763, 1563, 11630 and 11063. [Like the hermit crab, that must seek larger shells over the course of its life, the Skipper also moved to increasingly larger cases, as it grew over the years!!]
But rather lament that the Skipper never had a case of its own, as we approach the Memorial Day weekend (in the United States) and the start of summer (anywhere in the northern hemisphere), let’s celebrate the Skipper!! I have dome some research, spoken with The Master, and used all this new information to reorganize the Skipper section of OnTheDash.
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