The 2nd guide edition sees increases in the most desired watches, mostly in the 5-10% region, however the majority of models remained at previous guide levels. The "green" highlighted values (with a + sign on the right hand side) indicate values that have increased, red would indicate falls (however there are none for the 2nd edition). Autavias have seen most movement with 1163 GMT & Siffert models, 2446 and 3646 1st execution (big subs, dauphine hands) and manual wind Siffert coloured executions (such as 73633) going up in value. There are also continue to be serious top level collectors looking for Monaco and Siffert Chronomatics, but only very isolated cases of actual transactions taking place. It is safe to say prices on these models continue to gather momentum as they are now some of the most desired vintage watches (regardless of brand) on the market. Generally within the Carrera, Monaco and the "notable others" price guides, values have remained as they were, only the odd model has seen uplift.

There is also evidence of people seeking out rare and prototype dials, whatever model range they may belong to. So think along the lines of the Autavia 1163V Exotic dial "prototype", Carrera 2447 “sailing special order", 73633 variant with Arabic bund dial or manual wind Siffert colours, these are clearly watches collectors are now hunting down as desired pieces for collections. Also the very rare (only a handful seen so far) 11630 / 1163 white dial ie "white boy" is being sought. The jury is out on if this was originally only a 11630 variant, but several have been seen in the correct serial range cases as 1163 "white boys", either way it is another very rare Heuer execution and bidding has been strong to own one of the few currently in the market. The more collectors who “switch on” to vintage Heuer collecting the more that these rare models will become important and sought out, and as few collectors are parting with these pieces, prices look set to rise further. One of the most attractive traits of collecting vintage Heuer, was the sheer number of model and dial variations made. Heuer certainly chopped and change in search of a sales “bulls-eye” and this often made for small dial runs, with many of the less successful (at the time) variants likely to have been made in batches of 500-1000 or even less. Of course what remains today might well be a fraction of those original dial production runs and when we look at the "prototype" dials, far less still.

In a future update i will touch more upon the rarity of Heuers and the rarest and most desirable variants. Suffice to say there are many vintage Heuers of which we know of only a handful of examples to be in collectors hands. Also as mentioned below, even some of the more known variants are often only seen perhaps 10-20 times in a calendar year, it is what makes owning some of these pieces even more rewarding.

In this past quarter there was a sale of a small Heuer collection via Bonhams, pieces were of variable quality (condition and correctness were not comparable to the AMH TAG Heuer sponsored Bonhams auction) and prices achieved were largely as expected, within the “good” to “average” price ranges. Condition & correctness remains the mantra of a serious collector and this will always be worth paying more for in the long run!