For those of us soccer lovers, The Rough Guide series has a great book on the Famous european grounds; a travel guide for the football-obsessed. A watch guide would be a slendid companion piece...
New York is a very enigmatic place for watches, particularly vintage. You have a number of options for vintage hunting, all of them compromised in some respect. 47th street is the locus of the diamond and jewelry trade of course, and while there are a number of dealers in fine watches and vintage watches, the culture is very impenetrable, in some cases bordering on hostile. It is almost impossible for a casual vistor to glean knowledge about any particular dealer, let alone his or her inventory. The "tool watch"--accepting that this forums focus falls in that catgory for the moment--has historically not been appealing to the gold and diamond oriented mercantalism of 47th street, and in years of perusing the market there, I do not recall seeing many Heuers at all.
There are a number of specialist vintage dealers--Faber comes to mind--but they have long had a highly inflated notion of the worth of their inventory. Pre-internet, one could argue that there was a lot of embedded value in acquiring, curating, displaying, and paying rent on vintage pieces, but now that most serious collectors have a notion of the market clearing price for a watch, it seems absurd when the dealer mark-ups seek an extortionist premium. As far as Heuers are concerned, to my knowledge there has never been a specialist dealer with offerings to the public. Suprisingly, the curatorial instinct that is second nature to the European dealers seems absent in New York (and by extension to the rest of the US). When and if you do come across a decent selection of watches, it is usually dominated by the usual suspects (Rolex, Omega, etc.) with a smattering of random lesser pieces.
One big problem with New York is that street rents are prohibitive for anyone without huge turnover--I think the long-term lease structure in Europe has enabled a lot of vintage dealers to stay around. While I have not shopped in Europe much lately, it also seems that there is much more acceptance to blend vintage and new. The hegemony of Tourneau in New York has contributed nothing to this: they do have a decent exhibition in their flagship, but I dare say that not a single salesperson in any of their shops could tell you the difference between a Chronomatic and a Chronometer.
