PRICE LIST: TAG Heuer Price List 2018/2019

ON THE WRIST: TAG Heuer x Hodinkee Carrera 'Seafarer' Calibre TH20-00 Limited Edition Chronograph

TAG Heuer Boutique / Meadowhall, Sheffield, 30th November 2024 

I'll be completely honest... when the Hodinkee Seafarer was announced I didn't want to like it. 'Here we go,' I thought, another bloody vintage-inspired Carrera that's guaranteed to find favour with the Council of Considered Opinion... and a dead cert for the Watch of the Year! 

And yet, to my immense surprise, it turned out not to be as popular with the Council as I presumed it would and as we all now know the Seafarer ultimately lost out to the 'Time & Tide' Limited Edition Aquaracer. Praise be; finally a WOTY that wasn't a Carrera... and a solar quartz at that!

I know. As the organiser I really should be more 'neutral' shouldn't I? And I can't pretend I wasn't happy when the Time & Tide Aquaracer took the crown, but clearly my influence has little to no effect, you only have to look at the previous years' results to see that!

But Rob, you might say, how could you not get behind this wonderful release, harking back to the glory days of Heuer (and Abercrombie & Fitch, of course) and peddled furiously by everyone's favourite fashion magazine Hodinkee? 

Well, it wasn't that I harboured a particular grudge against the Seafarer (although the patronage of Hodinkee is the kiss of death for me), I just didn't want yet another 'vintage inspired' WOTY on the books. Of course back in November the WOTY voting was yet to get underway, so as I slid the watch onto my wrist it was still very much 'the enemy'... and with that in mind it's surprising that I liked it more than I thought I would. 

You see, it is possible to have an opinion, yet still remain open minded enough to appreciate watches that are not particularly 'your thing'. 

Sometimes...

Did it change my mind completely? No, it's still a vintage inspired Heuer after all and that's just not my cup of tea. But the 42mm case certainly helped and the 'Tide' button that looks stupidly large in photos doesn't seem quite so big (or as intrusive as feared) in person. The subdial surrounds are way too blingy though, a strange choice for a 'heritage inspired' piece one might think and the subdials themselves are surprisingly loud and obnoxious.

You know I can't help but think that we've reached the point now where, having used up a lot of the classic Heuers as inspiration, we're now reaching for more obscure models that look good on paper and that people might initially get excited by, but when it comes down to it won't automatically find an endless queue of buyers. True, the watch market has cooled, we know that; but back in 2021 a heritage inspired Hodinkee Carrera would sell out in a matter of days, whereas this one is still freely available several months after its release. Or maybe 968 pieces is just more then the market can take right now?

VIDEO: TAG Heuer 6000 Series Copper Dial Chronometer by Birth Year Watches

 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: TAG Heuer Diamond Dial Carreras

And so we come to the final four watches that were released at the '2025 LVMH Watch Week'. We've already looked at the five new Formula 1 Calibre 16 chronographs, the latest iterations of the Porsche Chronosprint glassbox and most recently the purple glass box chronograph and tourbillon, so now it's the turn of these four, umm... Carreras.

Now, some time ago I gave the illustrious 'Council' the choice to opt 'in' or 'out' of voting on women's watches, because I noticed that some members routinely gave everything a four (unless it was truly heinous) and I just thought it was better to give them the option to 'ignore' them rather than drag the scores down because they just weren't interested.

But the problem is you see, with women's watches getting bigger, and men's watches getting smaller, it's getting harder and harder to define what is a man's watch and what is a woman's watch. In the past it was clear; 27mm with diamonds and a mother of pearl dial, clearly for ladies... 43mm with a rubber strap that looks like a tyre tread; clearly for men. Simples!

SPOTLIGHT ON: GrandPrixWatches.com

 

I was recently contacted by Daniel from GrandPrixWatches.com about doing an interview for his website, which I was more than happy to do. Daniel has combined his passions to create GrandPrixWatches.com which he's billing as a 'Historical Resource for Formula 1 and Moto GP Watches'. I know some of you watch enthusiasts out there love the connection to F1 (in particular) so I'm sure you will find some interesting reading there.. there's certainly a lot of brands that I've never heard of before! 

Click the image at the top of the page to visit GRANDPRIXWATCHES.COM 

Or click the link below to read my interview.

https://www.grandprixwatches.com/2025/02/tag-heuer-enthusiast-interview-with-rob-aqua-g/

HISTORY: TAG Heuer Airline

Quite a short 'History' post for the Heuer/TAG Heuer Airline as there are only six watches in total. The Airline first appears in the 1985 (and penultimate) Heuer catalogue, with four models displayed. These appear again in the 1985-1986 catalogue and finally all six appear in the 1987-1988 catalogue (with TAG Heuer branded dials). 

I always liked the look of these, especially the cool black and gold version but once I realised that they were only available in mid-size (35mm) I reluctantly accepted that I was never going to own one. One thing I love about these is the wacky printed bracelets with the major cities and the time difference, I mean... talk about avant garde! 

Confusingly, only two of the original four Heuer models have 'GMT' bezels even though they all have GMT hands. So in the 1987-1988 catalogue TAG Heuer introduce 'GMT' versions of the watches that didn't have them before. These are then given a suffix 'GMT' which suggests all the others aren't... even though they are. 

All models are quartz powered.

VIDEO: TAG Heuer Carrera Chronosprint x Porsche Limited Edition by Monochrome Watches

 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: TAG Heuer Carrera 'Purple Dial' Glassbox & Tourbillon Chronographs

As the owner of a beautiful 'plum-wine-purpley/red-never-quite-sure-what-to-call-it' Kirium I am very open to unusual dial colours like these, and honestly this is the first time I've looked at one of these 39mm glassbox Carreras and not dismissed it as irrelevant. In fact, I think I actually quite like this one...!

Believe me, no one is more surprised than me, but there's something about the elegant purple dial and the domed crystal; it just looks like it was meant to be. Moser-ish even. Sure it looks kinda 'feminine', but not so much that I wouldn't want to wear it. I mean, I wouldn't want to wear it because these 39mm Carreras are too small for my wrist, but for the first time I'm looking at this and actually thinking it would be cool if they made it in a bigger size.

VIDEO: TAG Heuer Aquaracer 300M by Bruce Williams

 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: TAG Heuer x Porsche Carrera Chronosprint Rallye

 

Before I start this post, I just want to apologize in advance to anyone who gets irritated by my use of the words Rally and Rallye... I tried to clarify which means what but it's very confusing. I figured maybe it's 'Rally Straps' but then I found loads of perforated straps called 'Rallye Straps'. Google AI suggests 'Rallye' indicates a motor race rather than a political 'Rally', but then elsewhere it's suggested that 'Rallye' is the plural of 'Rally' or indeed it might just be the French way of spelling 'Rally' (which obviously makes it sound much more luxurious). Anyway, sorry 'bout that...!

Believe it or not, someone on the THF Forum has already backed the Porsche Chronosprint Rallye for the '2025 COCO Watch of the Year'! Quite a statement when we're barely a third of the way through February... but let us not forget that the very first release of 2023 was the Carrera 60th Anniversary Panda, which absolutely annihilated the competition on its way to securing the crown.

But then the 'Panda' was always going to be a sure fire winner, which is precisely why it was the last of the old style 'glassbox' Carreras... and honestly why it was strange that it was one of the first new style 'glassbox' Carreras. After all, the watch industry very much operates on a policy of 'never quite give the people what they want because we might be able to sell them something else in the meantime'. 

Once you give them what they want, the theory goes, the customer is satisfied and will stop buying. Well, I don't know about that... most watch collectors will tend to find something 'else' they want regardless, but I suppose the principle is sound. 

Anyhoo... following on from my 'Top 10 TAG Heuer x Porsche' watch post a few weeks back, here we have two more to add to the collection... if they are in contention for the WOTY come December I wonder which one will come out on top, or will they split the vote allowing something else to sneak past like some sort of horological Kimi Raikkonnen. 🤣

PRICE LIST: TAG Heuer Price List 2019-2020

 

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer 2000 Series 244.006 Quartz Watch

It's funny, I don't really look at eBay very often these days, but every now and then I click on one of those emails they send you heralding '327 new TAG Heuers' and occasionally it throws up something interesting. Of course, every third listing is suspicious as all hell, but now that eBay are utilising the wonderful and totally infallible 'AI' to check listings I guess we can all sleep safe in our beds.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  

Sorry, I can't help it. Ebay is a complete joke and I would love to know exactly how 'AI' is checking the authenticity of listings? How is it programmed to do that? I mean, it's probably no more completely useless than a real person who doesn't know their arse from their elbow - but I guess they can now point to using 'AI' and everyone will be reassured. 

Jesus Christ. I'm glad my eBay days are largely behind me. But anyway...

VIDEO: How to Set the Time on a TAG Heuer F1 Kirium by OBR Horology

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: TAG Heuer Formula 1 Calibre 16 Chronographs

 

Over the last few years it has become painfully obvious that TAG Heuer's 'Formula 1' range was starting to get a little tired. The current WAZ/CAZ case was introduced way back in 2015, and while there have been numerous updates and minor refreshes it really was starting to feel like it needed a proper overhaul. Last year's collaboration with the American clothing brand 'Kith' caused a whole lot of interest in the 'classic' Formula 1 and it feels like TAG Heuer have jumped at the opportunity to update with a new 'classic' 38mm three handed Solargraph expected at April's Watches & Wonders alongside this line up of Calibre 16 chronographs which was revealed about ten days ago.

While I did praise last year's Calibre 16 F1 chronographs as nice looking watches, the truth is they were incredibly safe and simply didn't have that certain something 'extra' to make them a 'must-buy' rather than another 'nice' watch in a sea of 'nice' watches. Thankfully it seems TAG Heuer have taken the plunge and produced something genuinely new here, which is absolutely to be applauded. After all the watch world is absolutely drowning in 'heritage' this and 'vintage' that and the Formula 1 was never supposed to be anything but fresh and forward looking. 

Yes, I know... the irony!

VIDEO: TAG Heuer Formula 1 Indy 500 Quartz Chronograph by Random Rob

 

BUYING EXPERIENCE: TAG Heuer Aquaracer Calibre S Regatta Chronograph

 

While it's a noble endeavour of mine to try to turn my rather large collection of (mostly) cheaper TAG Heuers into a smaller collection of 'less cheaper' TAG Heuers, it does rather take the fun out of the experience. Sure I was a little slow to cotton on to the fact that watches are not inanimate objects and they are liable to break and need repairing, but sometimes I really miss those heady days of 2019-2022 when every other month brought at least one new Ebay bargain to my door. Sigh...

Now, having sold approximately half of my collection, I have used most of that money to buy some nicer watches like my Grand Carrera Caliper Calibre 36, my Grand Carrera Chronograph Calibre 17, my SLR Calibre S and my Aquaracer Solargraph and I don't regret doing that, however I still get the urge to buy 'something cheaper' now and again. Truthfully, spending big money* on watches is still not something I am really comfortable doing, and since I only really like one watch brand most of the things I end up looking at are usually variations of things I already own or things that are still a bit out of my comfort-zone price-wise, even when pre-owned.

*My idea of 'big money' being anything over £2000 honestly...

VIDEO: TAG Heuer Formula 1 Calibre 16 2025 Chronographs by Monochrome Watches

 

NB: The video states there are four new Calibre 16 Formula 1s, but actually there are five. There is also another DLC coated model with lime yellow highlights.

ON THE WRIST: TAG Heuer Monaco 'Las Vegas' Monaco Calibre TH20-00 Chronograph

TAG Heuer Boutique / Meadowhall, Sheffield, 30th November 2024 

Another fruitful visit to the TAG Heuer boutique in Sheffield on this November morning, not only did I get to try on this 'Las Vegas' Monaco and the Porsche 963 Extreme Sports Carrera, but I also got to handle the limited edition Hodinkee Carrera Seafarer. More on that another time though... today we will concentrate on this DLC coated Monaco, and well if you've tried on any recent black Monaco you'll have a good idea how this wears.

COMMENT MODERATION ACTIVATED!

Apologies for having to do this but I've had to activate 'Comment Moderation'. Thanks to AI and BOTS I'm getting a lot of spam comments which wouldn't matter so much, but Blogger insist I delete any comment that has a link in it. So it's going to be a lot easier for me to just moderate comments in future. This may cause a delay in your comment being published in some instances, but please keep them coming.

Rob / Aqua-G

SPOTLIGHT ON: Another Ridiculous eBay Fake!

Just a little post today in lieu of a video... I reported the above 'Monaco 24' to eBay on Thursday and as usual they 'looked into it' and reported back to me that they found nothing in the listing that contravened their guidelines. I mean.... come on. It's not even difficult to see, is it? TAG Heuer have never even made a white dial Monaco 24 and even if they had it sure as hell would never have looked anything like this.

The only silver lining here is that the watch has a starting price of £3000. So if someone is actually gullible enough to purchase this (and it now has a bid!), then presumably eBay's 'hands on' authenticity checks will intervene. I mean, fancy being an authenticity checker and opening a box with this inside. You'd p*ss yourself laughing wouldn't you?  

FEATURE: TAG Heuer x Porsche - The Collaboration Watches (2021-2024)

 

You know, it really doesn't seem five minutes since TAG Heuer announced they were teaming up with Porsche, and already we're four years into this partnership with ten references on the books! How did that happen? Oh well...never mind. The great thing is that because all these watches have been scored by the COCO council previously we have all the info we need to do a top ten countdown! 

VIDEO: TAG Heuer SLR Calibre S Laptimer by Luxury Works

 

PRICE LIST: TAG Heuer Price List (January 2025)

 

Sometimes luck just isn't on your side... as you'll know if you read my previous post, I managed to delete the Word document I use for these price lists so I had to type the whole thing out again and then just as I finished it someone told me the prices had gone up! So annoying. Anyway, it's done now!

Aside from the previously discussed price rises (massive rises in the RRPs of all the tourbillon models and up to 47% on some pieces!) the main points to note from this snapshot of the TAG Heuer collection are the deletion of the KITH Heuer Formula 1s, all of which are now sold out and the fact that the Monaco Rattrapante's have changed from being listed at £121,000 to being 'Price on Application'. My guess is no one was biting at that price and it's perhaps not surprising when you think what else you can buy for that kind of money.

Also, the entire Monaco range has remained static on price, which perhaps tells us something... and finally the Autavia has disappeared again. Will it return (and in what form)? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

New items are coloured red, price increases are blue, price decreases are green (never had that before!) and anything else is left black.

You can click on each page to get a larger view, or even better open each image in a new tab.

TO VIEW PREVIOUS PRICE LISTS CLICK HERE 

(OR VISIT THE PRICE LIST TAB)

VIDEO: TAG Heuer Blue Dial Aquaracers by Brent Miller Time

SPOTLIGHT ON: Latest Additions to the Bicester Village Stock List

 

It's been a little while since I did one of these posts, so I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of what is currently available from the Bicester Village outlet... apologies to readers from outside the UK as this is obviously a little irrelevant to you.

I really used to love visiting the Bicester outlet before the pandemic, it was always exciting to see what weird and wonderful new pieces had been found in Swiss cupboards and to chat with Even, Tom and Liam. I got to see so many cool limited editions on my various visits, Monaco 24's, mother of pearl dial Calibre 16 Carreras, even a shark dial Aquaracer! Sadly these days the stock is a little more generic, but there are still interesting things to be found... it's just that the good stuff tends to come and go rather quickly, so it's pot luck what you see when you get there.

I'm sure some of you are aware, but if you aren't already it is possible to request a link to the outlet's WhatsApp list which will keep you up to date with the latest stock. All you need to do is contact Evan at Bicester Village (01869 249008) and request to be put on the list, and don't worry if you don't live near Bicester or Cheshire Oaks as they can send watches anywhere in the UK.

As always, there is limited stock and some of the deals are better than others, but I know in the past I've picked up some very nice watches from Bicester (most recently my wife's black and gold ceramic Aquaracer WAY1355) at extremely reasonable prices. The great thing about buying direct from the brand is that you can be sure that you're getting a genuine product and of course you still get your 2 or 5 year warranty (depending on the movement).

Okay, let's take a look at a few of their current offerings... and this really is only a snapshot of what's available, when I last looked there were 97 different watches listed; so well worth a look I think!

FEATURE: The Era of the Affordable Tourbillon is OVER!

Welcome dear readers and, well... a bit of a last minute change to the scheduled programming today. By rights you should be reading about a very old Heuer 2000 Series I spotted on eBay the other day, but that's going to have to wait... because today we have something far more interesting to talk about.

As you probably know by now, every six months I trawl the UK TAG Heuer website and produce a price list which you can access HERE or by clicking on the 'Price Lists' tab at the top of the page. While it's mildly interesting to keep track of the prices, the real purpose of these 'price lists' is to provide a snapshot of what's available at any given time to future historians. I mean if someone had been doing this since 1986 my life would have been one whole hell of a lot easier these last eight years, I can tell you!

But I digress...

VIDEO: TAG Heuer Green Dial Aquaracers by Brent Miller Time

 

ON THE WRIST: TAG Heuer Carrera 'Porsche 963' Calibre TH20-00 Limited Edition Chronograph

TAG Heuer Boutique / Meadowhall, Sheffield, 30th November 2024 

Way back in September last year (IIRC) I visited the TAG Heuer boutique in Sheffield's Meadowhall Centre only to find I'd missed the Carrera Extreme Sports Porsche 963 by a mere 48 hours. So I was pleasantly surprised to find it had come back into stock on my last visit... especially as we know it is limited to just 963 pieces worldwide. 

As I've mentioned previously, I find myself rather perturbed by this new Carrera line. On the face of it the daring, avant garde designs should be right up my alley, but somehow I find them a little hard to warm to. At least partly to blame are the strange looking rubber straps, with this faux integrated look that while admittedly practical, also feels very 'faux' indeed.

VIDEO: TAG Heuer Carrera Skipper Chronograph by Harrison Elmore

FEATURE: Keeping Track of Wrist Time 2024

 

Happy New Year to all my readers! I hope you've all enjoyed the break (if you're lucky enough to get a break at Christmas of course) and you're ready to start another year of TAG Heuer enthusiasm with me?

So, obviously, it's that time again... where I reveal the REAL winners and losers of 2024. 🤣

I'm talking of course about which watches spent the most (and least) time on my wrist, and this year it's safe to say it was a bit of a walkover...