The German watch magazine Armbanduhren (wristwatches) printed a special edition dealing just with Heuer and TAG-Heuer in 2003. I hadn't seen my copy in years, but was doing some reorganising this morning and came across it again.

Some interesting stuff in there, but a couple of very doubtful items in a section on a private collection.

First off, this "Carrera":

Well, Valjoux 23 was used in the 404 that came before the Carrera but not in the Carrera itself. The text says that it is "one of the first Carreras, presumably a prototype" - for evidence it uses the Ed Heuer signed movement (rather than Heuer-Leonidas) and the dial. Fair enough on the movement, the first Carreras pre-date the merger and come with movements signed like that, but that dial?! Doesn't fit at all with the period (the registers cutting through the numerals looks more like a Heuer from the 20s/30s/40s), or with Jack Heuer's stated intention to remove anything extraneous from the dial for the Carrera. It does use a 404 case, though, plus the correct movement though the hands are wrong - the main hands look wrong for a Carrera too, and that minute hand is way too long for the dial. I'd say it's a put-together with a redial myself.

The next one is more interesting and a lot prettier:

It begs the question why you would paint luminous markers black and the insert markers look dodgy but apart from that, it looks a really pretty dial. Yes, the case is all wrong and it lacks a bezel and frame for the date window but it looks attractive if you ignore the provenance, doesn't it? Again, the text is a bit weaselly ("This Autavia is most likely hand-made, thus an absolutely unique piece") and I bet you've never seen an 1163 quite like that before.

I think both go to show how much this forum and Jeff's OTD site have moved on the knowledge base in the intervening six years since this book was published. Well done to everyone involved once again!