Inside the Tag Heuer Collectors Summit 2024
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Last week, Tag Heuer gathered 30 of its associates together for its “Collectors Summit 2024”.
The two-day event took place at the brand’s HQ in the Swiss city of La Chaux-de-Fonds, and then at Artecad, the company that makes the dials for all its watches, 30 kilometres away.
Tag Heuer has done events like this before, but not for a while – the last one was in 2016 when Jean-Claude Biver still ran the company.
That was also attended by the now-92-year-old Jack Heuer (his birthday was on Sunday!), the former CEO and honorary chairman and great-grandson of the company founder Edouard Heuer, and the man who came up with its famous motorsport-inspired watches, the Carrera, Monaco, Formula 1 and Autavia. (The 2016 summit occasioned the launch of a new version of the Autavia, “a re-inspiration, not a reedition”, plus a new movement, the Heuer 02.)
Watch get-togethers are not unusual.
Brands like doing them.
Engaging with fans isn’t just an opportunity for enthusiasts to show off their collections and meet up IRL, cementing relationships that have often been confined to forums or WhatsApp groups – it’s a way of making a brand’s highest-spending and loudest-speaking customers feel that little bit extra loved.
But the guest list at Tag Heuer’s Summit was admirable both for its breadth and the care that had gone into organising it.
The attendees were drawn not from a list of high-rollers or big-spenders, but rather from a cross-section of people of standing within the watch community.
They flew in from America, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Spain, Denmark, the UK, and more.
Among them were a fair few About Time alumni, including Eric Wind of Wind Vintage, the Florida watch dealer described as “the best-connected vintage dealer in the world”; Jeff Stein, former Atlanta lawyer and leading authority on vintage Heuer, whose online resource on the subject OnTheDash is without parallel; Nick Federowicz, who runs Ad Patina, the company that sources and sells classic print adverts of watches, and George Bamford, of London’s Bamford Watch Department, the collector/enthusiast/CEO who has himself released a number of collaborative watches with Tag Heuer.
Also in the mix: Paul Maudsley, formerly international director of the watch department for Bonhams, and now behind his own watch trading business Remontoire; Abel Court, fourth-generation watchmaker and goldsmith; and three journalists, including me.
There were hardcore collectors too, including Morgan King, Clarke Hill and Thomas Popper, the latter whose specialist area isn’t so much Tag Heuer watches as the car dashboard chronographs that [pre-Tag company] Heuer began making in the 1910s.
Credit for the perspicuous guest list goes to Nicholas Biebuyck, Tag Heuer’s heritage director, whose CV includes working in the media, as well as being a watch specialist at both Bonhams and Christie's.
His current job title rather undersells him.
Dynamic, plain-speaking and intellectually rigorous, Biebuyck’s role isn’t (just) to fuss around with old catalogues and make sure Tag Heuer’s Museum is in good shape, but to advise on new product at the highest level.
It was he who suggested that the product team base 2023’s hugely successful Carrera 60th Anniversary Edition on the brand’s 1960s ref. 2447 SN “panda dial”, for example – a highly desirable edition among collectors. (Biebuyck describes himself as “a collector first”.)
Not unrelatedly, his other passion is fast cars. (More than once, his black 2007 Porsche 911 Carrera S was visible overtaking someone on the Swiss horizon, as our minibuses bought up the rear.) To say his knowledge of the brand, delivered at around x2 normal talking speed, is encyclopaedic is an understatement.
Thomas Popper, the dashboard chronograph-collecting guy, turned out to be a timely invitee too, since Tag Heuer is one of the brands, under parent company LVMH, that's included in the freshly-inked ten-year deal to sponsor Formula One, starting 2025 – a business that was taken from Rolex for an astronomical undisclosed sum.
Formula One is now exceptionally popular. Tag Heuer is the leading brand for watches with a historic, deep and genuine connection to the sport. Legendary drivers used to race wearing Heuer watches. One if its collections is even called Formula 1, for goodness’ sake.
(“I have to laugh every time I hear the name,” Biebuyck told Esquire's weekly watches newsletter About Time, back in May. “How anyone would let you call a watch ‘Formula 1’. It goes to show it was a different time [the mid-1980s]. [Then chief executive of F1] Bernie Ecclestone and [chassis builders] FOC, the Formula One Constructors Association… the promoters were running the races. Bernie owned – quote, unquote – the IP of Formula One. My guess is that because Akram [Saudi Arabian businessman Akram Ojjeh, the then-owner of Tag, the technology company that joined with Heuer] had McLaren, and McLaren was absolutely vital to Formula 1 at the time – [rivals/teammates] Senna and Prost were the lead characters of the moment – I’m sure [Akram] was just, like, ‘I'm gonna call my new watch the Formula 1’. And Bernie was, like, ‘Yeah, sure, whatever!’ These days you have naming agencies and naming committees, and everything else. But this [was] such a perfectly-named watch for such a perfectly-timed moment that I don’t think you could repeat it.”)
Perhaps Tag Heuer will start capitalising on all this in a few weeks’ time, when the new year starts and Rolex's legal agreement expires.
It’s surely too early to speculate.
“I have never seen a sport boom like Formula One has, in all my years of being a sports obsessive,” one Tag Heuer employee told me. “Ten years ago, you’d mention it to someone in America, and they wouldn’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Now everyone knows – and young people, too. [Netflix’s] Drive To Survive has changed everything.”
Also creating strong tailwind for the brand right now is Frédéric Arnault, who became CEO of Tag Heuer watches in 2020, then CEO of all of LVMH Watches, and has been firmly in control ever since.
“It’s impossible to think of a brand that’s gone through such a transformation as what we’ve been through,” another employee said. “It’s taken four years – from operations, to product, to designs, through marketing, through communications, to retail – we went from less than 100 t0 300 monobrand [ie: shops] around the world. That’s massive in four years.”
Where once Tag Heuer tried to be many things to many customers – touchpoints have included football, basketball, golf, kitesurfing, Hollywood movies, pop stars, skateboarders, Mario Kart and streetwear collabs – it is now focused on doing what it was created to do, making luxury sports watches that men want to own.
But, anyway, the Summit was great fun.
As well as hanging out and taking endless wrist shots of each other’s Tag Heuer watches – shout out to guy who turned up wearing a Cartier – the visit included a tour of the brand’s Museum, its manufacturing facilities, a riffle through its own internal archive of thousands of watches, many of them rare and obscure, as well as a morning at the aforementioned dial-making facility.
Everyone was invited to give feedback on the brand, “good, or not-so-good” – useful crowdsourced intel, of course.
If all this sounds a bit nerdy and niche, you may be in the wrong newsletter.
If not, then here’s some stuff I learned at Tag Heuer’s 2024 Collectors Summit.
The market for vintage Heuer is in rude health.
“One of the top five storylines of 2024, from my perspective, has been the return of vintage Heuer,” said Eric Wind. “It was quite difficult to sell vintage Heuers the last few years. But there’s a tonne of new collectors entering the market that saw the same things I saw when I first got interested in watches, which is great value, great heritage, particularly around motor racing, and great colours. The colours on these watches are different from anything else from the period.”
This guy understood the assignment. ☝️
Tag Heuer collectors are a nice bunch.
“Collecting groups tend to be reflective of the watches,” said Hodinkee's Rich Fordon. “These are awesome people, a really diverse group of people. So, when you bring them together it all kind of works.”
“The feeling of this collector group is very different from other collector groups, where there’s a lot of egos, a lot of pride,” said Eric Wind. “You can practically see the dollar signs lasered into people’s eyeballs. Here, it’s not that at all. It’s such a supportive community. And the community got hurt during the peak period, 2017 [when investors came to view watches as an asset class, driving up prices] when it got too crazy – but the speculators have left the building, thankfully. Now it’s the enthusiasts again.”
We may have Jeff Stein to thank for the Skipper.
“The “Skipperera” [later known as the Skipper, an unusual yacht-race inspired chronograph with a vibrant blue, green and orange dial, said to mimic elements of “the sea and sails”, originally created in 1968 in a run of less than 20, which has subsequently become a collectors’ grail, and was last year reissued to broader appeal] was probably the first watch to use colour-blocking like that,” he told me. “We thought it was a fake! In 2008, they opened the [Tag Heuer] museum and [collector and watchmaker] Nic Green and I were a party in the garage, and you could come and go, when you wanted a drink or food you went to the garage, and if you wanted to look at a watch, you went to look in the Museum. Nic and I walked up, looked at [the “Skipperera” on display] and said, “What the hell is that? Are they on drugs or something?” In 2008, there were no discussion forums, no Instagram, no Facebook, that watch was never in a catalogue, it was never in a printed book – so you could buy [the official] Heuer’s 50-year history [book] and it wasn’t shown. So, we snapped a couple of pictures through the thick glass. Sent it to the watchmaker for Tag Heuer – he was head of their service department. And in typical Swiss fashion he came back with “Oh yes, that’s reference 7754 – that’s a “Skipper”. And then it became a thing. Values went up.”
We got to try on some of 2025's new watches.
But we signed something that means we can’t talk about them.
The Museum got a fine new poster.
"If you love Heuer, you love their history," Nick "Ad Patina" Federowicz said. "And, if you think about it, advertising is a huge part of their history… Just think about that shield logo - the best in the game - on the livery of race cars, sewn onto uniforms. I’d argue their omnipresence in auto racing makes them a lifestyle brand as much as a watch company. That’s why I was quickly able to reconcile that contributing an ad to the Summit was just as good as bringing a watch. And when it came to choosing an ad, I didn’t want to bring something expected, like a Carrera or Monaco ad. Instead I chose something full of potential - to make the case for ads being art. Ultimately my choice was a 1950s era ad featuring the Solunar. An outdoors model known for its colourful subdial that keeps track of the tides. Unfortunately, the aesthetic beauty of the Solunar isn’t fully captured by a black and white ad. That allowed me to reimagine the design and breathe new life into the ad by creating an underlying layer in the colours and pattern of the subdial. And if you know me, you know I love fishing with my son, so the fisherman sketch is perfect."
Forget Formula One, find a Delorean.
Heuer famously provided the props department for Steve McQueen’s 1971 movie Le Mans with six Monaco watches (or was it more?), the square-cased model that is still marketed today on its associations with the actor. Next month Sotheby’s will auction one of those six off with an estimated sale price of $1m. In 2002, two appeared on eBay. The owner was asking $9,000 a piece.
Everybody pooled their watches to get a photo like this.
The estimated value on the table?
£1m.
Collecting vintage Heuer offers something different to, say, Rolex.
“The appeal is the variety, all within the same design language,” said collector Clarke Hill, “I like 1960s and 1970s Heuers because of the colours. It’s very difficult to get this amount of colour in a vintage watch – they’re mostly black, white or silver. That’s what keeps collectors interested.”
Tag Heuer's watchmaker wears a cool old Heuer that belonged to his dad.
“My father was a watch dealer, and Heuer was one of the brands he sold,” Denis Chardon, watchmaker and coordinateur at La Chaux-de-Fonds, said. “So, this was my father’s watch. My father had this watch because he was selling Heuer. He loved watches. When I turned 40, he asked me what I wanted as a gift. He wanted to buy me something. 'You can have anything!' He was quite disappointed with me. I just wanted this [an Autavia ref. 15063].”
Tag Heuer doesn’t do straight reissues.
“I’ve been on record many times,” said Nicholas Biebuyck. “We’re never going to laser-scan a watch and remake it one-on-one. If you want a vintage watch, buy a vintage watch.”
This guy understood the assignment (day two) ☝️
Watch out for the vintage Heuers in Senna, the six-part series starting on Netflix this month.
“They called and said, ‘Can we have a bunch of [period correct] watches for filming?’,” Biebuyck, himself a huge Ayrton Senna fan, said. “We supplied eight.”
But one thing isn’t exactly right.
“I wish I’d had a bit more context on the storyline. Because they’ve given Ron Dennis [former McLaren CEO, played by Patrick Kennedy] a watch that he didn’t actually wear. I would have got them something different.”
There are a lot of watches in Tag Heuer’s archive.
“About 3,500, currently,” Biebuyck said. “With a value of CHF 18.5m, something like that. But most of that [value] is tied up in the two McQueens [the Museum holds two of the six Le Mans models]. I have the one on display and then I have the backup. Those are insured for $2m. “Skippereras”, I insure first executions of those for 100 grand each. Black Monacos [only a few exist] I insure for 100 grand. Because if I go to the market and I want to replace them tomorrow, that’s what I have to pay.”
There's an annual budget for buying watches for the Museum.
One collector suggested it was perhaps unfair that many of the hottest old Heuer/ Tag Heuer watches were being bought by Tag Heuer themselves. “I don’t buy that much,” Biebuyck said, not entirely convincingly. “When it comes to the collection, there’s three categories we’re interested in. There’s new-old stock examples – they get put in the Museum, or they’re for the product team to look at. We also have stuff for global exhibitions, I send more than 500 watches internationally every year. And then we’ve got stuff for movie props. And maybe stuff that I might eventually sell one day, as well. So, we do need a couple of extras.”
There’s a missing The Wolf of Wall Street watch out there somewhere.
“We loaned a bunch to the movie,” Biebuyck said. “The diamond one that Leo [Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Jordan Belfort wears a Tag Heuer Series 2000 watch, ref. WN5141, a real watch released during the late 1990s, that flopped. Belfort’s is 18K gold with a diamond bezel, a model watch-spotters frequently assume is a Rolex] had is still missing. That was from the Museum.”
But Ryan Gosling’s all-gold “Ken” Barbie watch ref. 1158 CHN is safely back in the archive.
We saw it.
There’s a F1 engine block on display in the Museum. It used to be a coffee table.
The 1.5-litre V6 twin turbocharged Tag Turbo F1 engine was designed by Porsche at the request of the McLaren Formula One team. Until recently, it had spent 30 years in Jeff Stein’s Atlanta garage/ “man cave”. “It’s good to see it home,” he said.
There are many, many cool watches on display in the Museum. This Carrera ref. 3147N 'Dato 12' with a Shelby Cobra-signed dial, for example.
“The Shelby is like the coolest, it’s the ultimate pick,” said Eric Wind. “It’s the only one that’s a Dato [ie: it has a date wheel, at 9 o'clock]. It’s the only one that’s like that. It could be a $200,000 watch.”
But there’s plenty still on the Museum wish list.
“Anything driver-led,” said Biebuyck. “I was very lucky that I bought Vittorio Brambilla [1970s Italian F1 driver sometimes called “the Monza Gorilla”] 1158 CHN on the bracelet from his family earlier this year. I just got in contact with the guy who was the race director for Scuderia Ferrari in ’72, who we presented with an 1158. So, I’m hoping that I can either borrow or buy his watch, cos it’s great. I’ve got a few gaps in the collection. I’m missing a lot of Comaros [unusual 1960s manual-wind chronograph]. I would love an Autavia Seafarer Screw-back ref. 2446.”
Still, there are limits.
“We had 300 references for stopwatches in the catalogue in 1968 alone," Biebuyck said. "Pretty hard to catch all of them. It was 70-80 per cent of the turnover of the company, it was a huge, huge deal.”
Of the collectors’ watches, Jeff Stein’s “Paintless Wonder” Monaco took top prize.
“This was probably one of the first 100 of the automatic watches [the company made],” he told me. “The only version of the Monaco as the launch model was midnight blue – so this used to midnight blue. But they had trouble with the blue paint, so this just totally deteriorated. Why is it so valuable? People like tropical [dialed] watches, people like to see natural aging. Also, people are, like, ‘You mean Heuer couldn’t make a blue watch?’ And the answer is ‘no’. If someone had sent this in for servicing and repair, that would have been a mistake. The discussion forums come up with the names. Someone called this ‘the Paintless Wonder’. So now that's what it is.”
This was my favourite test from the manufacture facility.
As you would expect, almost every machine in Tag Heuer’s manufacturing facility is state-of-the-art, including machinery that tests for accuracy, water resistance, pressure, condensation, exposure to magnetic fields, thermal cycling, drop tests, impact resistance and rotor noise. There’s also a couple of lo-fi ones, including sac à man – a 10-inch plastic tube that contains pens, tubes of make-up and rubber bands, to simulate any cosmetic damage that could occur should you choose to keep your watch in your handbag.
The UV test machine was also quite specific.
It’s set to 60°F – to simulate the sunlight in Miami.
The work at Artecad, the dial-making facility, is... involved.
Before the dial-making even begins, the instruments to make them are milled on-site, using 0.5mm diamond tools. Numbers and indices are laser-cut from brass before being "turned" and coated with Super-LumiNova. There are over 200 types of index, each being diamond-cut and turned multiple times. It's a painstaking, hand-executed process involving many rooms of watchmakers. (Here, you do become a bit more sympathetic over the prices of luxury watches.)
Here’s a few rarities and oddities from the brand’s archive.
Set of plastic “Easy-Rider” watches, endorsed by Jacky Ickx
“This was the actual packaging it came in,” said Jeff Stein. “They wouldn’t even put the Heuer name on them. They were terrible! They sold a lot of these in Sears, Roebuck, the retailer. Within in a couple of years, they all crapped out.”
Biebuyck already had his retirement gift earmarked.
“This ref. 2447 pre-Carrera on the original beaded bracelet – the condition is glorious,” he said. “I love 38.5mm – hard to beat. I wear a lot of the other stuff but for me, this is just… [fades off at the very thought of it].”
Not every watch in the archive makes sense.
“This is a weird thing, if anyone’s got any insight into this?” Biebuyck asked. “A Breguet numeral quarter-mile scale Heuer chronograph – it turned up with a private collector in Switzerland. Who knows? I paid quite a lot of money for it because I was curious. It’s a weird and wonderful thing. Maybe someone made the dial?”
And finally, everyone agreed Tag Heuer is on a roll.
“Fifteen years ago, us vintage Heuer collectors, we came in and we looked at those drawers [in the archive] and there were 200 plastic Formula 1 watches,” Jeff Stein said in a closing speech to the room. “And now we see those same drawers and what you’ve done, and how you’ve organised it and controlled it. And the same with the Museum – when it opened, there was one Bund chronograph on display. And now you have a whole display of military chronographs. Fifteen years ago, when we saw that Tag Heuer was introducing a new watch we’d say, “Oh my God, no”. We were just not buying it. But now we are literally buying it. You guys are making great watches. We love what you’ve done. It’s in your bones. We look at the watches that are coming out next year, and are already out, and we finally have the alignment between Heuer and Tag Heuer. Between the vintage and the modern.”
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