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Saturday, 12 February 2022

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer 02T Japanese Limited Edition Tourbillon

 
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You may remember a little while back I did a post about two new(ish) Heuer 02T Carrera Tourbillons, one a limited edition of seven pieces for Las Vegas and one a limited edition of five pieces for Jimmy Butler. At the same time I was researching those models I also came across this one, which is not quite as limited and not quite as new... though I'm not quite sure when it did come out, but this one was being sold with the remainder of it's factory warranty and that was due to expire in March 2023, so we can assume this was originally purchased in March 2021.


Just twenty pieces of this cool blue tourbillon were produced for the Japanese market, I don't quite know why but Japan often (but not always) seems to get blue pieces for their limited editions, see also the previous skeletonised Heuer 01 model and the recently released 'Year of the Tiger' Carrera Calibre 5.

Do I like it? Well that's a good question. I don't dislike it, but neither am I lusting after it. It just feels like yet another variation on the same thing with a different colour scheme. It's fine, I wish they'd done more to it than just changing the hands and putting a blue strap on it, but I could say the same about lots of other watches. Actually the Las Vegas one, tacky as it is, does actually look like some effort went into making it relevant to Las Vegas, this, honestly, could be for anywhere in the world, it doesn't even say anything about Japan on the back.


If this was a 2022 release I'm sure some members of the COCO Council would be at pains to point out how lazy this was and how TAG Heuer churns out endless meaningless 'limited editions' with minor changes to the base model. While they do have a point, unlike some people I don't see any great harm in it. Is the primary purpose of the watch to create a USP for sales staff in the Japanese TAG Heuer boutique? Yep, sure. Does it devalue your watch if someone else has one with a blue second hand and a different strap? I really don't think so. So what exactly is the problem? I say let them make as many LEs as they want; after all my top three Grand Carreras are all region specific limited editions, so I can't really criticize them for it. 


Here is a link to the listing, the watch is sold (no indication of price unfortunately).

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