Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to a matter of time, a.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Podcast by Tag Heuer. I'm your host, Nicholas Bibek, heritage director at TAg Heuer and a lifelong enthusiast for fine swiss watchmaking.
We're continuing our story with the Monaco today and taking a step forward into another chapter. We've already discussed the arrival of the model in 1969 and of course, the amazing impact that Steve McQueen had on the collection. But by 1974, the model simply wasn't performing commercially.
The design for the Monaco was just.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Too unusual for most consumers to understand.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: And whilst creative visionaries such as Stanley Kubrick and Sammy Davis Junior were able to understand the significance of this new form in the watchmaking industry, for many day to day consumers, seeing the watches sitting in the exhibition cases of a retailer just didn't resonate with them. The decision was made to change the direction for the calibre eleven family. And in fact, the new Silverstone model, with its rounded squared form, was designed as a successor to the Monaco, removing its innovative picaret waterproof case with its sprung pins to support the back within the front frame, and instead moving to a more traditional screw down case back, but still retaining some amazing signature elements, such as the bright blue dial, complemented by a lacquered deep red and a degradet finished fume dial also. So, in 1974, the Monaco disappears from the catalogue. There's a few closed out sales that are presented in the following years, but for all intents and purposes, what today is now great icon within the watchmaking.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Industry had faded into virtual non existence.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: But there is a small exception to this story.
By 1978, the watchmaking industry was moving in not such a great direction. The court crisis was setting in deeply. And whilst Heuer had mitigated some of these challenges early on, with its understanding of electronic timekeeping and the miniaturization to create watches such as the Chrono split, it was clear that things were not so great for mechanical watches.
Heuer had had some success in the preceding years with black coated cases, most notably with the Monza, a model launched in 1976 to celebrate Niki Laudas championship win for Ferrari.
This black chromium oxide finish would find its way onto the Montreal collection, but also the Carrera in its new barrel case shaped form.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: There was a version that was fully.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: Black coated on the bracelet and on the case.
From what we can tell, although it's all quite a mystery, there were a.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Few remaining stock of cases destined for reference. 74,033 Monaco. Normally with a stainless steel case and a blue dial. Much as you would expect for a.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: Monaco this discovery of the remaining stock of cases and movements meant that with this new technique to finish the cases in black, that had become something of a stylistic movement, not only in watchmaking.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: But in fashion as well.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Particularly pushed by the military aesthetic surrounding the conflicts taking place in Vietnam, this new blacked out colorway would work perfectly on the form of the Monaco, with its sharp, angular edges. It created this highly industrial and stealthy aesthetic, which at the time was extremely.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Contemporary, but very prescient of what would.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Come in the watchmaking industries nearly 30 years later with the black coated watch.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Movement that we saw in the mid to late two thousands.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: So, taking a Valgeo 7740 movement, a standard two register chronograph with date window at six, and the innovative Picaret case conceived for the Monaco, there was a.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: New platform for something interesting that was.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Worth trying as an experimentation. The cases were black coated and going to our great dial supplier, Saint Jeu.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: They conceived a dial for us with.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: No step to make it more affordable and without any applied markers. In a sense, this was very much an attempt to commercialise the success of the Monaco again, to try and restart it, but with a more economic dial format and a more economic finishing to the case, you didn't need to brush and polish it, you could simply black chrome it. And it meant that it would improve the profitability of the model.
It's funny today when we think of it in this sense, because, in fact, now the watch, nicknamed either the Black.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Monaco or the Dark Lord by some.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Collectors, has become among the most collectible vintage heuers in existence. Prices range anywhere between 50 to 150,000 francs, depending on condition and the people who are deciding to buy the watch at the very moment.
But it's become an absolute icon for.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: Not only the brand, but also as a foundation for what would become this aesthetic of fully black coated watches that would evolve in the decades later.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: So what makes the watch so special? Well, first of all, black case, black dial, a little pop of orange to kind of liven up the design, these.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Strips of loom that are applied to.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: The dial, it's a very sparse and.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Minimalist design, but in a way, it.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: Dramatically helps the legibility of the watch and just makes it look, once again like something that no one had really seen before.
Alongside that, this matte black finish throughout.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Both on the dial and on the case, gives the watch the sensation that it almost absorbs light.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: And rather than kind of camouflaging it in a day to day existence, it.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: Almost draws attention, because the watch looks.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: So unusual but probably the most pertinent point around the high value of these.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Pieces today is the unbelievable rarity of the watches.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: The black coated Monaco never technically made it into a product catalogue, but it.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Would appear that certainly a few hundred.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Pieces were made and retailed in specific markets where it could be tested. We've seen them show up in Germany, we've seen them show up in the.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: UK, some in North America, some in.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: Central America, and clearly they're just almost unobtainable. In fact, when the watches first emerged, many collectors didn't believe that they were real watches produced by Heuer. From a timeline perspective, it doesn't fit.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: The narrative that the Monaco had disappeared.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: From production and it was just so.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Outside of the norms of what was expected of the brand during this period.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: But thanks to this unbelievable rarity, this kind of mystical quality, and this mysterious.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Story that surrounds the watch today, we understand it to be one of the.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: Most important and significant watches, particularly for.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: The Monaco collection, but also for the brand.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: It's amazing to see how the codes laid down in this unusual and extremely rare watch have resonated across the decades, have in fact defined the aesthetic of.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Some of our contemporary pieces as well.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Watches such as the Monaco night driver that was launched in 2022 and the skeletonized Monaco that we launched at the Grand Prix in Monte Carlo in 2023. We can see these codes carrying throughout. We can see earlier examples, limited editions we made for the automobile club to.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Monaco, the Monaco v four Phantom.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: This fully blacked out aesthetic, sometimes featuring a pop of orange, has become a signature for the Monaco collection, and all coming from a little test run of a small batch of watches to understand if the market was interested in the Monaco once more.
I hope you've enjoyed today's episode of a matter of time. It's always a privilege to be able to share a bit of the history of Tag Heuer with a new audience. Please don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast, and we always love to hear your feedback. Please feel free to leave a comment wherever you can and I look forward to welcoming you to the next episode of a matter of time. In our next episode, we'll be continuing the Monaco stories, but jumping 20 years into the future to 1997 and we see the relaunch of the collection.
