Auction of vintage Heuer watches

Most auctions feature vintage Rolex, Patek Philippe or very complicated watches. Coming Wednesday, December 15, a very special collection of extremely rare and well conditioned vintage Heuer watches will be auctioned at Bonhams in London.

The collection of Arno Michael Haslinger has been built up with the aim of representing the best of Heuer. The collection of museum-quality comprises over hundreds of pieces, including the most iconic models such as the Silverstone, Autavia, Carrera, Daytona and Monaco. If you ever considered buying a vintage Heuer, this is the time to take action. The auction sale is organized in partnership with TAG Heuer to celebrate their 150th Anniversary. For more information you can look at the Bonhams website, which contains not only the entire collection, but also three movies about the collection.

Arno Michael Haslinger is a devoted Heuer collector and even wrote a book about vintage Heuer chronographs, that should be on every watch collector’s bookshelf. The first ‘expensive’ watch I ever bought was a vintage Heuer Autavia and since that time, I’ve been a fan of Heuer (and later TAG Heuer) chronographs. That’s probably why my second watch was a TAG Heuer Monaco.

The book Heuer Chronographs shows photos of  Haslinger’s own collection of vintage Heuer chronographs and information about these watches, their timeframe and Heuer’s many relations with the race sport. There is for instance an overview of Heuer chronograph in the timeline (click on imagine to enlarge).

Although I’ve been a Heuer chronograph fan since I began collecting watches, it wasn’t until I read Haslinger’s book before I knew how much Heuer was involved in the race sport. Almost every new chronograph that has been released since the early 1960’s has the name of a famous race circuit or race car.

In the book you will find detailed descriptions, illustrations, photos and characteristics of 81 of Haslinger’s vintage Heuer chronographs. Numerous portraits, racing adverts from the time and some unpublished images make this definitive book an absolute delight for all motor sports fans, and remind of the Heuer watch company’s close link with the icons of Formula One racing, including Jacky Ickx, Niki Lauda, Clay Regazzoni, Jochen Rindt, Jo Siffert and Steve McQueen in the cult film Le Mans.

For me the rare Jo Siffert Autavia is still one I would love to ad to my collection. I once owned the re-issue of this particular model, the TAG Heuer Autavia re-issue, with similar white dial and black subdials. Unfortunately I resold the watch within days and already regretted to selling it before it was sent to the new owner by courier.

TAG Heuer have also created a unique watch especially for this auction.  It is based on the newly launched Silverstone model and the dial will incorporate Jack Heuer’s signature, a true one-off for the discerning collector.  All proceeds will be donated to the Green Cross International charity.  Arno Haslinger will also donate his original Silverstone to this cause and Bonhams will add a further 20% to the hammer price.

The photo above is from Calibre 11, a blog entirely dedicated to Heuer and TAG Heuer watches. They wrote extensively about both Hasliner’s book Heuer Chronographs and the collection that will be auctioned. Our friends from Hodinkee invited collectors to the NYC preview and also wrote several times about the Haslinger collection.

The absolutely beautiful book can be bought online for 68 euro or 105 CHF and is perhaps an excellent Christmas present…

If you have a few bucks more to spent, do yourself a favor and take a look at the magnificent collection that will be auctioned this Wednesday by Bonhams.

More details at www.tagheuer.com.