After over 15 years as the definitive reference for Heuer enthusiasts, Jeff Stein has just relaunched his encyclopedic OnTheDash website. You will find ample information about the new site, on the OnTheDash homepage. To provide Revolution readers with an inside look at the new OnTheDash, we asked Jeff Stein to select a handful of sections from the new site, and then highlight his favorite posts in each of these sections.
The Favorites
Looking at traffic in 2018, these are the OnTheDash posts that got hit the hardest. Two of these, we might have expected, the Guide to the Autavia and the Guide to the Seafarer. The third one is a bit of a surprise — a step-by-step guide to building a storage case for your watches. Check them out:
1. The Collector’s Guide to the Heuer Autavia
2. The Definitive History of the Abercrombie & Fitch Seafarer
3. Paul Gavin Shows Us How to Make a Watch Storage Case
Buried Treasure
OnTheDash is a massive collection of Heuer information. What that means is that sometimes, some of the best of information gets hidden away thanks to the sheer volume of this on the site. In the course of reorganizing for the new OnTheDash, Jeff suggests you have a look at this buried treasure:
Says Jeff: “For the past 15 years, we have pretty much ignored the stopwatch section of OnTheDash. With so many hundreds of models being made over the decades, they are difficult to catalog, and interest in these timepieces, among our readers has been minimal.
“But when we were designing the new OnTheDash, we took a simple approach to the stopwatches, dividing them into three groups: handheld stopwatches, wrist timers, and pocket chronographs. Within the handheld stopwatches, for example, we show the different timing capacities (3-minute, 12-minute, 30-minute, etc.) and the special models (for example, the yacht timers, the Ring-Master, and specialty stopwatches.
The more stopwatches we added, the more we wanted to add. Whether the simplicity of the photographs, the display in the catalog motif, or the importance of the stopwatches to Heuer’s heritage, we wanted to add the thousands of models that Heuer has made over the years. And we are off to a good start, with more to be added soon!”
The Catalogs
Yes, there are over 70 catalogs displayed on the new OnTheDash, and selecting a “favorite” is a strange undertaking. But we forced Jeff’s hand to select a ONE favorite catalog, and he pointed out the 1942 catalog. According to Jeff, “This is the first catalog to show the three-register chronographs that would be developed into the Autavia and Carrera, 20 years later. The catalog has its mysteries, as well — what is this Reference 2446 model, shown on page 5?
“This is the reference number for the Autavia that seems to have been unused for those two decades. Next to the 2446, we see the Reference 2444, but it is entirely different from the Reference 2444 model that Heuer would produce in the mid-1950s.”
1. 1942 Catalog
It appears as if Heuer was sketching out the varieties of chronographs that it might produce, with the actual task of producing the watches coming some years later.
Future Classics
In the course of re-launching OnTheDash, Jeff created numerous new posts that you’re sure to enjoy. Here are three of these “Future Classics”:
1. WatchFinder, a great way to find that one vintage Heuer you’re looking for
Collectors love the Skipper models. We have seen the vintage Skipperrera model break the $100,000 mark, and both Revolution/The Rake and Hodinkee have offered new TAG Heuer Carreras based on the vintage Skippererra. But what was missing was aa article that established the origins of this model — why did Heuer offer the Skipper in 1967? How did the Skipper change, over the almost 20 years that it was in the Heuer catalog?
To address this missing chapter in Heuer’s history, Revolution’s Tracey Llewellyn commissioned Jeff to write an article. You can read the initial article here. For the launch of OnTheDash, Jeff took that article, and expanded it significantly to offer a comprehensive look at the Skipper models, from the Skipperrera in 1968 to the last model, in 1985.
