My Heuer Carrera Dato 12.

This is not quite the “regular” Heuer I would be interested in. I did saw it several times on vintage watch fairs but I never gave it much (or enough) attention. Always thinking it was to classic for me and that it was too small for my wrist.

It was untill the first Heuer Summit in May 2008 at TAG Heuer headquarters I really began to appreciate this particular Heuer wristwatch. There’s an example of such a Carrera Dato 12 displayed in the TAG Heuer museum, one with white dial and black subregisters, reference 2547 SN. At that specific Heuer Summit we were also lucky enough to get a look at a part of the private collection too! Also in this collection there were two of these Carrera Dato 12 watches. I had the chance to take a good look at them and even try them on my wrist. Just at that point I began to really appreciate this model, and I fell for it.

Since that day the Carrera Dato 12 was in my mind, not very prominent but it was always there.

And then, at the end of last august, it just happened, very natural and unforced. As I would describe it as “various things that happened at approximately thesame time and with benefits for every party involved”, a unique situation. At this time I would like to give big thanks (again) to Pär Wallström and Paul Gavin. I was able to obtain this Carrera Dato 12 thanks to them. We managed to work out an incredible trade which created benefits for all three of us, difficult to believe but the truth. We all had one watch we wanted to sell or trade....we all badly wanted to buy another specific watch.

What happened was really a perfect example of what watch collecting should be all about: Passion and Honesty!

I’ll end this boring story here and show you some pictures from here...these were the pictures I received from previous owner;

So far so good...I was really looking forward to receive it. Pictures were very promising but you never know untill you have it in your own hands. I’m sure every collector knows what I’m talking about. When opening the package I immediately saw the dial and hands were cosmetically near perfect. Usually the dial is a problem with these Carrera Dato 12 watches. I was over the moon because the dial was still perfect - a real pearl!

I had also pretty good confidence that I was able to make some very nice improvments to the case, still with keeping originality and authenticity in mind. Here are some pictures before the case-service;

The movement itself, the Valjoux 723, was not working at all. Ofcourse I knew this. For me these movements are a real pleasure to work on, only sourcing spare parts can be difficult sometimes. It didn’t take me long before I started working on it...When I took the dial off I was almost shocked as the movement was really soaking in oil. For the movement itself this can do no harm at all...but for the dial itself and also for the day and month disc this could have been really bad. Lucky enough I was able to clean them without damaging the font. Those were really breathtaking moments...just take a look at the day disc soaking in oil...shocking!!

Also some other parts were needed;

So, after solving some technical issues with this Valjoux 723 movement and some serious case-service this is the result – enjoy the pictures - no more text from now ;-)

With my best regards from Belgium,
Abel.