Great posting Shaun, and yes it's been fun collaborating with you on a couple of these acquisitions.

In the course of working on this posting, it was interesting to hear the reactions to mentions of Abercrombie & Fitch. The average guy under age 40 knows only of the mall stores, the tasteless advertising, and the brand is held in the lowest possible esteem. The question that I got from a couple of guys was "Why did Heuer have a relationship with a brand like Abercrombie?". Inherent in this question are a couple of suggestions -- first, that Abercrombie is currently a disrespected brand and, second, that TAG Heuer seems to have recovered from the weakness of its image a few years ago. I was going to get into this in the posting, but it seemed to take me off on a tangent.

But the key point is that Abercrombie & Fitch was once a glorious, well-respected brand. It lost its way, and the prospects for recovery -- in terms of esteem and reputation for quality -- do not seem good.

Jeff

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

: The article is really excellent, thanks Jeff.

: I share Jeff's love of the Seafarer line, and over the years we
: have chased the same watches. But what is amazing about this
: forum (and Jeff) is that even though we were sometimes competing
: on the same watches, Jeff still helped me acquire 2 out of the
: three watches in the photo, so thanks Jeff!

: I still haven't touched the ref 346 model, which Jeff termed a
: "time capsule" watch when he picked it up at Atlanta
: airport. I would like a new crystal to show off the amazing dial
: but I only want one of the top vintage Heuer watchmakers to work
: on the watch, so I need to wait until they are free (some other
: of my watches are in the queue first).

: The story of A&F in many ways like the story of Heuer and TAG
: Heuer, but to the power of 10. A&F was a serious, historic
: brand, dedicated to selling functional "tools"; it was
: associated with famous people, but not through marketing deals,
: but because of the functionality of what they sold. It then went
: bankrupt and was transformed into a huge global brand monster,
: unrelated to it's former life. A bit like TAG Heuer, but at
: least TAG retains a lot of it's soul and respect for history,
: whereas A&F seems to have zero.

: Here are some more Seafarers
:
: