Hodinkee announcement

Wibbles

I suspect that will never happen. TAG seem to have an odd relationship with that particular model of watch. I've never seen it mentioned in any of the company publicity or history. Jack Heuer in his autobiography never mentions it either. Doubly odd given it's one of their better known models, a pilots watch, with flyback function, has "military" history to it(all big marketing points. The ad copy near writes itself), was one of their most produced watch models and with the military contract meant consistent cashflow for those times they needed it, which was often in the late 60's through the 70's.

Maybe the German defence forces have an exclusivity contract with the design? Though they produced the watch for other militaries and civilian examples exist. Maybe because it was a bought in design when they absorbed Leonidas, they didn't feel it was "one of theirs"? Even when the BUND sold off a large number of them in the 90's they did so through Sinn, not through TAG Heuer. I always found it puzzling and interesting in equal measure. 😀

JMH76 said:

Where is accurate Omega dating a click away?

Calibre11

I reckon you're right- it's not really a Heuer.

When Sinn won the servicing contract for these in the 1970s, they kindly got rid of the tattered old Heuer branded dials and installed fresh Sinn ones...Heuer did not like that one little bit.

Wibbles

Scalpers leave a nasty taste in my mouth. Bottomfeeders IMHO. They do find a market though. If there weren't buyers willing to pay over the odds they wouldn't exist. Certainly not Hodinkee's fault though.

Sorry JM, you are of course correct. I was wrong to suggest precise dating for Omega. But one can find approximate dating easily enough. Here, and here and here(1st three returns on a googling). Hodinkee don't even go the approximate date option. Instead vaguely stating the general decade in question, often erroneously, even on big ticket examples. They most certainly could and should pay for an archive request were possible on say a six grand watch where the Dink Premium adds well over a grand to a normal dealer price. Inexcusable for any Longines where a free email will give the date.

It's all very odd alright. 😀 Odder again that Heuer in the 80's submitted an updated calibre 12 auto version to the Bundeswehr hoping to extend the contract. The simplest answer might be that they sold off all rights to Sinn sometime in the 70's when Heuer were on the ropes financially?



The Sinn non tritium dials came a little later, after the public sell off in the late early 90's of 1550's surplus by the Bundeswehr through Sinn(again TAG Heuer seem to have washed their hands of them and Heuer aren't mentioned in the Sinn ad copy, even though the photo shows a Heuer dial). Or at least I've never encountered a pre sell off military provenanced example with the Sinn dial. Seems to have been a coin toss concerning which dial someone would get. There were so many service dials and latterly "enhanced" dials, the (3H) getting a large enough premium.

Cad290

Ha! "I scratched it up some, please pay me $2100 extra for it now "

Cad290

Ha! "I scratched it up some, please pay me $2100 extra for it now "

tyrantlizardrex

An awful lot of people take what watch bloggers and journalists say as the gospel truth - there are nearly always reasons that things get said, or not said.

Hodinkee, for example, went nuts over the Piaget Polo S - but I doubt anyone in the team there bought one.

In this hobby, the one thing that stands true on every occasion is "Caveat Emptor" - if you're putting your money on the table to buy a watch, no matter who it's from, you'd better be damned certain that you've done your research, and know what you're getting into.

Does the seller/blogger/journalist have a responsibility to get it right?

Yes.

Does that mean they always will?

No.

Does that make them a bad person?

I don't think so - so often it's human error, or trusting a source of information that isn't correct, that is to blame, rather than setting out to deceive.

The bigger you are, the less people seem willing to accept that you just make innocent mistakes sometimes.

Superdoc

But beyond everything else....that POLO S really bothers me... I don't mind the squeezing of faceless corporations, or brands that have been giving it to us with insane price mark-ups etc, but to endorse a watch as crappy as the Polo really crosses a line for me... The thought that they would betray their reader's trust like that is inexcusable.

From my sources, there was not a single journalist affiliated with Hodinkee who didn't think that the watch was a giant pile of shit... but then they put up an article placing it in the company of a Patek Nautilus and a Vacheron Overseas as premium SS options..

Maybe "Putin" had purchased one too....

Now I understand that we all have different tastes... but I invite and challenge ANYONE to go look at the Piaget POLO and tell me that it isn't the cheapest feeling hunk of crap they've ever handled...

Hodinkee should at least feel some remorse for steering anyone towards that piece of crap...

Superdoc

I resent the fact that Brands I trusted and respected now feel the need to kiss the ass of a blogger... 200 years of watchmaking, fabricating personal watches for monarchy, and now we're sucking up to a website?... I don't BLAME hodinkee, Hell, How could you not admire the heck out of what they have accomplished....but I hate what its existence signifies... I truly believe that it will be looked back upon as a dark time akin to the quartz crisis.

yinzerniner

Tag Heuer skipper, not bad at all.


Way better than their last three or four collabs. Will be sold out in a flash, only 125 available.