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The place for discussing 1930-1985 Heuer wristwatches, chronographs and dash-mounted timepieces. Online since May 2003.
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Community Grail vs Personal Grail
In Response To: My take on it.... ()

You make some really good points Steve. I do agree there is a big difference between personal grails which every collector has, and a "community grail" which Jeff tried to define. One way of thinking about it is that if Jeff had asked 500 different Heuer collectors for their personal grail lists, and then found which watches came up most often, I think he would have ended up with a very similar list to the 16 he defined.

Anyway, I wanted to say what my personal grails are, because when you see the list, you can easily see there is no way many (or most) of them are grails across the wider Heuer community.

So here goes a few random watches off my (very long) grail list, including some which I eventually found and bought, after years of searching:

1) The weird "non Calculator" Calculator with the MH/T bezel that Jeff showed in his article. I saw this weird watch in a catalog and looked for it for years. Many of us in the community even doubted it existed, maybe it was just some idea when the catalog was put together and was never really made. But eventually I found a perfect one, and they crop up occasionally. But I am not surprised it is not a community grail - its a weird, awkward and somewhat pointless watch. But I love it.

2) The Beechcraft Calculator - not a racing logo, but the Beechcraft aircraft company logo on a Calculator. Also one that most collectors don't care about, but is very rare. I eventually found one after years of searching.

3) The Boxing 5100 series watch - a standard 5100 series watch but with a special boxing timer inner bezel. It's another one that was in the catalogs which we were not sure if it was actually produced. Eventually one turned up (I think Peter found it?) and was auctioned along with a Ringmaster timer. I didn't try buy it as in my mind it was made in pewter grey, but in reality it was black PVD, which I didn't love. Thats what happens when your grail is based on a black and white drawing in a catalog!

4) Screwback Autavia cased Seafarer. I agree with Jeff that it is so rare it's not such a realistic grail, but it might get a lot of votes if price was no object. I'm still dreaming of that one.

5) Carrying on the catalog theme, it was always a dream for me to find an 1133G Monaco transitional. The 1970 catalog has a photo of a 1133G Monaco with transitional style square hands and blue lume. Did it exist? Or just a graphic designers mock up? I guess you could fake one by taking the hands of a Chronomatic Monaco and put it on an 1133G. It would be a crazy way to destroy value, but hey...

5) What about a watch that we have zero evidence it exists but it is possible... a Carrera 2447 NT doubled signed with Abercrombie and Fitch - that is a huge grail for me even if it probably doesn't exist!

7) And finally - a watch that definitely does not exist, but we can all dream... how cool would a solid gold Montreal be?

There are more on my personal grail list, but thats enough for now..

Any other weird personal grails out there?

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