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I fall on the same side of the net, but ...

Why vintage? I'll show you. *PIC*

Posted By: allen st. john

Date: 5/9/07 12:13 GMT

I was looking at the TAG Heuer page on another watch discussion group, and they had one of those "Show your collection" threads.

State of the collection... Yah, I can probably guess the website.

I read it from beginning to end. Several dozen watches.

And except for a couple of nice vintage pieces, and a couple of Carrera and Monaco reissues, there wasn't one watch that I would wear.

I don't mean buy at a market price. Or even a reasonable discount. I mean that If someone *gave* me any of these watches, I wouldn't wear it instead of my $27 Timex chrono.

If it's not an homage to an old watch, IMHO there's a very high "what were they thinking factor?" to most modern TAGs.

Yeah, well... About that...

Here's the thing... Most of us know that Heuer stopped being Heuer in the mid 1980's when TAG (Techniques d'Avant Garde), acquired Heuer. Basically Heuer had been on the ropes for several years before they were bought out. Heuer was, in essance a dying company.

I remember the first time I saw an Se/L model, on the cover of a British Airways in-flight magazine on the way back from England just over 20 years ago. My two immediate thoughts were "Wow, that's really different, and I'll bet that bracelet feels comfortable on the wrist (and if I remember correctly, the Se/L bracelets were very comfortable on the wrist.

The TAG-Heuer of today is a much much stronger company than the old Heuer company was at it's apex. The reason it is so much stronger is because of models like the Se/L which sold well in the market place.

Now myself personally, I can't see me ever wearing something like that. However, I could see "George Hamilton types" owning and wearing that model watch...

Two-Tone watches are fairly attractive on bronzed skin and they are certainly flashy enough for this personality type. Remember that most people do prefer Quartz watches over mechanicals.

And after all, if they really didn't sell and didn't turn a profit, TAG-Heuer wouldn't have sold them for so long.

I too personally fall on the same side of the "Vintage or New" side of the net...

Opinion-Editorial: New or Vintage?

I do understand that the marketplace abhors a vacuum and products will be produced to fill any potential need. That's what TAG-Heuer has become very good at doing. I'd much rather have a live, thriving, healthy and profitable TAG-Heuer than merely a dead and mostly forgotten Heuer-Leonidas.

best

Allen

However, I'm not particularly enamoured with the modern Monza...

Which is in no way similar to the original...

and personally, I think it's a waste to use the El-Primero base movement in the Monza when they could be making an exceedingly desirable Carrera re-issue with either that movement (As an automatic) or a manual-wind move via a rotor-less version of the El-Primero.

But that's just me.

-- Chuck

Chuck Maddox

Chronographs, like most finer things in life, only improve with time...
Watch Article index: http://www.xnet.com/~cmaddox/cm3articles.html,
Watch Links Page: http://www.xnet.com/~cmaddox/watch.html,
Watch Blog: http://chuckmaddoxwatch.blogspot.com/.

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