SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Formula 1 'Max Verstappen Red Bull Champions' Limited Edition Quartz Chronograph

 

CAZ101AY.FC6591

A few weeks ago I got an email from a guy who told me that he was an ex employee of the Red Bull Formula1 Racing Team, he said he wasn't a watch enthusiast but he had received one of the 'Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing Champions' watches and in researching what it might be worth he had discovered my blog and found it interesting reading my thoughts on his watch.

He said he had listed the watch on eBay for £3600, but perhaps unsurprisingly it did not sell and it was later relisted with a starting bid of £1025 and a buy it now price of £2800. Being that he wasn't into watches I tried to give him the best advice I could, but with a watch like this it's quite hard to advise on what he should expect because it's so difficult to assess.

First of all, who is likely to buy this watch? To me it's clear that it's probably more for a huge Max Verstappen fan than it is for a 'watch enthusiast'... much like the Alec Monopoly Formula 1s were, but this can work for and against you. A watch enthusiast is more likely to to be willing to pay 'thousands' for a wristwatch than a F1 fan who isn't really interested in wristwatches, but watch enthusiasts tend to be more invested in automatics than quartz pieces and with that rather clunky bezel this watch isn't exactly the best looking Formula 1 ever made either is it?

SPOTLIGHT ON: New Variations on the Titanium Solargraph and the 2021 39mm Carrera

We seem to be reaching the point of the year where TAG Heuer aren't actually releasing new watches so much as putting straps on existing models and trying to generate excitement about them by calling them 'Online Exclusives'... which is something I've never really understood. 'Boutique Editions' I understand (watches you can only obtain by travelling to a particular boutique, possibly in an exotic location like Monaco), but suggesting that something is 'exclusive' because you can 'only' buy it on the internet makes so little sense that I feel like I would need the world's most powerful microscope to measure it!

Anyway, I feel somewhat duty bound to at least show you a picture of these most elusive timepieces, but I really don't think there's any need to trouble the C.O.C.O. with either of them. After all, they'll still get to score them at the end of the year.

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Aquaracer 'Glacier Express' Limited Edition Automatic Watch

 

It never ceases to amaze me how even though I think I must have uncovered 99.9% of all the watches that TAG Heuer have made over the last 40 years, I still manage to find references that I've never come across before. This Aquaracer was actually the by-product of hunting for information on a different watch (another limited edition that I hadn't seen before, a 2015 'Swiss' Aquaracer) that I was trying to find a part number for. Google images threw this one at me, presumably because it is also a silver dial limited edition Aquaracer... and, well, I kinda like it!

The watch is currently on eBay, being sold from Australia for approximately £1985. If that seems a lot (it did to me too) even for a properly numbered 250 piece limited edition, one thing to point out from the off is that this watch isn't a quartz as I assumed it would be, but a Calibre 5. Even so, I doubt the seller will achieve that figure very easily. In fact the watch was previously up for £900 more, which was really reaching! 

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre TH20-00 'Harrods' Limited Edition Chronograph

Okay, let's get this out of the way right off the bat.... why is this a 'Spotlight On' post and not a 'First Impressions' post? The answer is simply that 'First Impressions' posts are for watches that have just been released, and somehow it seems this watch was released last year without anyone in my circle knowing about it. Nobody told me, nobody posted it on the THF forum, literally did not have a clue and as such it was not included in last years 'Watch of the Year' voting procedure. In fact the only reason I found about this one at all is because I spotted it on Watchfinder and thought 'what the hell is that!' 

And that's a bit of a shame if you ask me because I feel like this one could have garnered a vote or two. First off it's that crowd pleasing 42mm size (well, crowd pleasing is maybe a touch generous, but it's not 44mm so... a few more people will like it) and crucially it isn't yet another bloody glassbox, and that immediately kicks it up a notch in my opinion. 

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer's 2025 Releases (Jan/Jun)

Once again we've reached the mid-point of the year and presumably passed the halfway point of TAG Heuer's 2025 release schedule. So it's time to refresh your memory and give you an insight as to what could be in the running for the COCO Watch of the Year award come December.

It's amazing, everywhere you look you hear 'TAG is back', indeed it's become a slogan for TAG Heuer themselves since they took over from Rolex as the official timekeeper of Formula 1. As an aside, if you are an F1 fan, don't you absolutely hate it when people say 'The F1'? Isn't that the dumbest thing you've ever heard? Or am I just an angry old man who hates change and gets upset about the stupidest things?

Well, maybe!

Which is kind of funny because, how can I put this.... everyone loves TAG Heuer's new direction, the endless glassbox Carreras, the new 38mm F1s and.... and.... I just don't! Initially I really wanted to like the new F1s, in fact I was even mentally setting aside the money to buy the red 'Italian' GP one, but having tried on a few of them now, I just find them slightly odd. 

Maybe it's because I've owned a ton of the original models and I'm still hung up on how they 'used to be', but while making them larger seemed like a great idea, it just doesn't seem to have translated somehow. The lume pots are too chunky, the hands are too small and thin, the case around the lugs is just weird and, well, I could go on... the rubber straps are extremely cool, I'll give them that, but I'm not buying a watch just for a cool strap (...again).

So yes, my excitement level this year is pretty low, in fact I'd say right now I'm struggling to think of a watch release this year that I'd actually want to own, save perhaps for the Monaco Gulf. I must admit I do quite like the black/lime Calibre 16 Formula 1, but in person it's not quite as exciting as I'd hoped. I'd rather get an old 500M Aquaracer in the same colour scheme for less than half the money.

Ah yes, money. It always comes back to money doesn't it? But how can it not. Prices are still rising at ridiculous levels and contributors to the THF Forums are one by one switching brands or simply stating that they've bought their last 'new' TAG Heuer. I have to agree. I can't honestly see myself buying anything else at 'full price', unless my circumstances change drastically, not when you see the 'real' market value of the current watches when they appear pre-owned on Watchfinder, etc within a few months. Now that's depressing!  

But, you know, when I got into this hobby I couldn't afford to buy new watches, and then for a while I could (just about) and now thanks to my stagnant wages and TAG Heuer's price rises I can't again. Whatever. Maybe in five years I will be buying a pre-owned 2025 watch at a fraction of the price it cost new? Or maybe thanks to the lunatics in Silicon Valley I'll be looking for food in the bottom of a dumpster while trying to avoid getting shot by security drones... 

Anyway, let's have a look back at what TAG Heuer have presented so far this year:

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Kirium Chronometer Chronograph

Oh man but I'm so tired of silly people on YouTube telling us that the new TAG Heuer Formula 1s should only have cost £600... honestly, anyone that ever believed they were going to charge £600 for a 'vintage' inspired re-issue of a beloved watch with upgraded materials and a solar powered movement need to give themselves a good talking to. Have these people ever bought a watch strap from TAG Heuer? Do they know how much they charge for two small pieces of rubber? Come on, be serious. This is not a Swatch and the Moonswatch was not an Omega, just get a grip. It's fine to want them to be cheap, of course... but actually being disappointed when they aren't is just silly.

How could they possibly sell a Solargraph F1 for £600 when the Solar Aquaracers are nigh on £3000? Sure they are overpriced, but show me a Swiss watch from any of the big players that isn't. It seems the problem here is that there is an expectation that TAG Heuer were relaunching an 'affordable, entry level model to the mass market' when it's actually nothing of the sort. Most of the watches are limited to between 1000 and 3000 pieces, hardly 'mass market' and primarily they are aimed at middle aged people like me who remember them from the first time around (just about) and perhaps younger people drawn in by the Kith release last year. 

But look, there's nothing wrong with wanting to buy a decent TAG Heuer for around £600 and it can be done. In fact it's surprising what you can find if you're willing to wait and keep your eyes peeled.... and you can do it without exposing yourself to the cess pit that is Ebay. No you're not going to get a Monaco or a Carrera at this price point, but there are watches available that in their day were pretty high end, for example this minty looking Kirium chronometer chronograph which is currently on the H&T website with a discount of 20%. 

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer's New £3500 Bracelet...

 

Well Watches & Wonders has arrived, and with it an absolute avalanche of new TAG Heuer releases (18 in total, can you believe that?) and understandably most of the attention has fallen on the new 38mm Formula 1 Solargraphs, but there were other releases... a bevvy of new 'in-house' Carrera Day/Dates, a rather odd looking teal-dialed Carrera GMT and a very limited edition white ceramic Monaco Rattrapante (which you almost certainly won't be able to afford even if you really wanted one).

As usual, we'll be getting to all these in due course (the Council of Considered Opinion has already begun musing over the non-limited edition Formula 1s), but something caught my eye while perusing the new releases on the TAG Heuer website. 

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/

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...

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?  

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer's 2024 Releases (Jan/Jun)

So it's been a 'busy' year for TAG Heuer already, with nearly fifty new watches added to the catalogue since January the 1st. Unfortunately we haven't actually caught up with all of them yet, such is the pace of the recent launches... but I don't want to delay this post in the hope that I catch up because you know exactly what will happen. So, grab a beer (or a coffee, or whatever you like to drink while pondering your next purchase) and join me in reviewing 2024 so far.

What has surprised me this year is how forgettable many of the new releases have been. This is almost certainly partly due to the sheer amount of new products being made available. I mean, not only have we had nearly two watches per week (on average), but we also had a new range of sunglasses - I mean did you even remember that? It just feels like there's always something else on the horizon, and I can't help but think this is counter-productive.

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Formula 1 'OneLife Rally' Limited Edition Quartz Chronograph

CAZ101AM.FT8054*

Occasionally TAG Heuer will make 'special order' models for special clients, generally organizations or charities; these tend to be standard models that have been modded with a logo either on the dial or the backplate. This one popped up on the TAG Heuer forum (I think it was spotted on Instagram) and it's basically a stock CAZ101AM that has been customized with a 'OneLife Rally' engraving on the side of the case and on the backplate.  

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Formula 1 Quartz Chronographs (Now on Bracelets!)

 

CAZ101AP.BA0842             CAZ101AN.BA0842             CAZ101AM.BA0842

This post has been kicking around for a few weeks, but since there were (frankly) a lot more interesting things to talk about I never got a round to posting it.

Initially released last year on some rather nice colour coded rubber straps, nevertheless these three were scored very low by the council in the end of year poll (and rightly so in my opinion). A year on and TAG Heuer have decided to re-release them on the standard Formula 1 bracelet and, well... I'm not entirely sure it's a positive move.

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Carrera 'The Race Never Stops' by Nicholas Biebuyck

 

As part of the 60th Anniversary celebrations for the Carrera, Nicholas Biebuyck (heritage director at TAG Heuer) has written a large-scale book detailing the history of the model. Most excitingly for me it also contains a large number of illustrated references showing many of the pieces right back from the start and up until 2023, with pieces such as the CBN5A91 Plasma and even the Porsche Chronosprint (albeit unfortunately in that particular case the dial design changed between the book being finalised and the watch being released).

It's a stunning looking book, satisfyingly large in size and weight and while I'm sure I will read the first half of the book eventually, my main interest was of course the guide to references contained in the latter half of the book. As most of you will know, I have been working on my 'History of the Carrera' posts for a very long time and as a new (and official) resource this was prime fodder for finding references that might thus far have slipped through the net.

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Carrera 'Las Vegas' Limited Edition Heuer 02 Chronograph

 

CBN2A1J.EB0265

Every now and then TAG Heuer release something which makes you stop and stare, and the CBN2A1J 'Las Vegas' limited edition 44mm Carrera Sport is truly one such watch. Now obviously it's not for everyone, but when you consider the environment in which it was being sold it kinda makes sense. What better way to remember the night you went to the Casino and came away with a few thousand dollars tucked into your money belt, eh? But in the cold light of day, maybe it's a harder sell... and perhaps that's why it's currently for sale on the Watchfinder website for just £2550. 

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Monaco 'Jamie Carragher 23 Foundation' Calibre 6 Limited Edition Watch

 

WW2110-0 'Jamie Carragher'

You may remember a couple of weeks ago I managed to turn up a watch that I hadn't seen before and commented how unusual this is these days after years of extensive research. But of course there are always more oddities to uncover and today we have another truly obscure piece to talk about.

I won't pretend to know anything about football past about 1981; my last in-person experience was watching Leicester City defeat Manchester United during one of Leicester's brief forays into Divison One (as it was then called, now the Premier League). So I'm afraid Jamie Carragher, whose career spanned about 17 years between 1996 and 2013 was never on my radar. Until now of course.

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer/Bamford Carrera 'Wes Lang' Heuer 02 Limited Edition Chronograph

 

While Bamford Watch Department's watches aren't considered 'canon' (and thus are not appraised by the Council of Considered Opinion or eligible for C.O.C.O. Watch of the Year inclusion) their major collaborations are worthy of reporting nonetheless. Last year they produced a fairly Godawful green Carrera (RUF/High Snobiety) that had me reaching for the sickbag, but I have to say this is much, much better!

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Carrera 'Japanese MOP' Calibre 5 Limited Edition

 

WAR211G.BA0782

It's not that often these days that I come across an older TAG Heuer watch that I wasn't previously aware of, so to find this model on the Watchfinder website the other day was quite a pleasant surprise. I've seen black mother of pearl dial Carreras in men's sizes before (I tried on a Calibre 16 at Bicester Village years ago) and just recently we've seen a new limited edition 42mm Carrera with a MOP dial, again for the Japanese market - but I think this one is the nicest of the lot. 

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Aquaracer 'Ibiza' Limited Edition Calibre 5 Watch

 

WBP231G.FT6234

As you may or may not recall, at the tail end of 2021 (I think I actually covered it at the start of 2022 because I didn't find out about it straight away) TAG Heuer released a twenty piece limited edition 43mm Aquaracer 'Ibiza' edition, which was basically a blue dial Aquaracer with a black ceramic bezel instead of a blue one. It was a pretty small change, but it looked great... better than the normal one in my opinion, and it also came in a very funky box.

SPOTLIGHT ON: TAG Heuer Formula 1 'Mexico' Limited Editions

 
WAH1015.FT6026              CAZ2013.BA0876               CAZ2014.BA0876

A few days ago an Instagram poster called 'tagheuermaniac' sent me a photo of a WAH style quartz Formula 1 reminiscent of the Gulf model but with green and red stripes instead of orange and blue. I had never seen this model before so I'll admit I was a little sceptical at first (after all, I have spent more hours than I care to remember trying my best to find and catalogue every TAG Heuer ever made on my 'Gallery' blog and also here in the 'Number Lists' and 'History of' posts), but after doing some more digging I managed to verify that this was indeed a genuine model and in the process uncovered two more 'Mexico' limited edition Formula 1s!