CAW211V.FC6466
Several weeks ago someone sent me a leaked picture of the first of the five 50th Anniversary Editions expected this year, and I did not like it at all. The picture appeared to show a brown dial with orange and red highlights and it looked pretty awful. Out of respect I didn't publish the picture, but I did share it privately with some members of the Calibre 11 forum and the reaction was almost universally negative.
Well, I've always said that seeing pictures of a watch is no substitute for seeing the watch in the flesh, and it seems now that we can also say that judging a watch by a single, leaked, poorly lit photograph is also a mistake. For a start the watch is not brown, but green and from the pictures I've been seeing today, it looks a lot better than I thought it was going to. A whole lot better!
As you probably know, the watch is limited to 169 pieces, which... I don't really care for. I think if you're not doing 1969 pieces then don't even bother with this, as my wife said, it's a bit like when someone has a personalised car number plate that doesn't actually say what they want it to say. They might just as well have said 150 or 200. 169 is a fudge, and not a good one. But I guess the die is cast for all five pieces now, so we'll just have to let it slide.
The dial features 'Cotes de Geneve' stripes, which is a pretty neat idea, with amber and red highlights. It also features two black gold 'sunray' subdials at the 3 and 9 positions, and is presented on a brown leather racing strap. The rear of the watch features the classic Heuer logo along with 'Monaco' text and 'One of 169'. The watch is priced at £5350, although that's largely irrelevant as it appears to have sold out within 18 hours.
So it's a lot better than I thought, but do I love it? Not really, but I like that TAG Heuer came up with something genuinely fresh. It would have been so easy for them to churn out another blue dial Monaco, put a nice engraving on the back and call it a day. It would have sold by the bucket load and everyone in the watch community could have moaned about how TAG missed an opportunity to celebrate their 50th Anniversary in style with a genuine re-edition of the original 1969 model.
But that was never going to happen. The round pushers would have necessitated a new case design and on top of that, the original Monaco is a very agricultural piece that would not look good when standing against other models in the range. So what should they have done, fudged it? Added all the touches that make a modern luxury timepiece a modern luxury timepiece like bevelled edges and polishing? Then they would have been slaughtered by the purists.
No, in my opinion they've done the best thing they could do really; low volume, standard case designs with unique dials and case-backs. This one seems to have turned out reasonably well and I'm already looking forward to the 1979-1989 edition and secretly hoping for pastels and geometric shapes on the dial. Sadly, word on the grapevine is that this is actually the most radical of the five, which is a bit of shame if it's true. But I could actually see this one becoming a collectible, if only because it's so damn different!
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