This post started to form in my mind when I hit "search" on Instagram and out popped a picture of a curious item. The Heuer photocell in question. Credit @heuercollectors It looked like a closed-circuit camera. It was in a striking shade of red embellished by the Heuer mark and stood atop a black tripod. The poster, @heuercollectors, offered a caption:
... I bumped into this wonderful red colored racing track device, a heuer (sic) formule (sic) 1 photocell. Just couldn't resist buying it from a friendly Belgian owner. I can't find a lot of information on these devices so all additional info (when, where, how it was used) is very much appreciated!
Challenge accepted.
I almost immediately began to understand why the original poster was having such a hard time learning more. A metal tag on the base of the object provided a "Mod" number which read 2-21. I couldn't find anything about that model but I did find a model 2-31 photocell that looked more modern.The more recent 2-31 photocell from Tag Heuer. It was made by "Tag Heuer Professional Timing." So, I went to Tag Heuer's web page thinking I could find some materials about this subsidiary or department. A FAQ made it clear, though, that the brand had shuttered the Professional Timing line. There was no additional information available there.
I caught a break, though, when I looked at the Wayback Machine. There, I found an archive of tagheuer-timing.com which opened with the following text:
As a manufacturer of the finest professional sports watches, TAG Heuer has always been closely associated with the world's elite sporting events. Since timekeeping requires absolute mastery of the technique of translating human exploits into minutes, seconds and thousands of seconds, TAG Heuer has chosen to put its extensive experience at the service of all those who must sanction the performances.
Sometime in the past, Tag Heuer Professional Timing clearly provided precision timing devices for races of all sorts, including skiing, horseback riding, running races and car racing. However, even on the archived web page, I could not find information about the model 2-21. Out of desperation, I searched for the manufacturer name given on the metal tag: Heuer Leonidis SA. At that point, I believe the puzzle was solved.
The search brought me to onthedash.com, a web page run by renowned Heuer expert Jeff Stein. There, I found materials from a 1973 book entitled Business Policy: Text and Cases by Harvard Business School faculty (Andrews, K., J. Bower, C. R. Christensen, R. Hamermesh, and M. E. Porter). The chapter in this book on Heuer Leonidas is a masterclass in the brand's history. A good portion of the discussion describes the development and sales of nechanical chronographs. A subsection of the material, though, focuses on "Heuer Electronics Corporation." The efforts of a German electronical engineer named Christian Nitschke are brought into focus by this material. Nitschke developed business for many of the electronic timing deviced offered by Heuer, including a product called the Centigraph.
It was so named because it could measure time down to 1/1000 of a second. Timing results were also printed on paper. The Centigraph was part of a bundled product sold under the umbrella of Heuer's "sports development" efforts. Car racing teams were offered
a complete, portable system for auto mobile timing, using as a base the previously-developed Centigraph printing timer and a series of photocell actuators. Several automobile racing teams were contacted about the developmental effort, and Ferrari was sufficiently interested to request a timing system that would permit `pit' crews to time Ferrari and competitive cars.
Further articles on the subject confirmed that Ferrari used this device at their home track (called The Fiorano Circuit) as well as during races such as Le Mans.Components of the Heuer Centigraph package for professional car races. Allegedly, the team believed that host nations were possibly depriving them of accurate speed measurements and they wanted to check official records with their own device.
Inspection of the Ferrari-deployed Centigraph system strongly suggested that @heurcollector's red device was a photocell forming part of the whole. First, the color seems to match quite well. Second, in a piece published in GQ, the Centigraph's operator, Jean Campiche, indicated that in the earliest years of the Centigraph, 45 photocells were used to record a race car's speed. Later, the system transitioned to transponders fitted to the cars. These would transmit signals to an antenna when the vehicles passed, obviating the need for the photocells. For this reason, it seems unlikely that a later product employed a photocell resembling the 2-21.
The "portable" Centigraph system at work.There is, nevertheless, some residual uncertainty over whether @heuercollector's device was, indeed, part of the Ferrari Centigraph system. I could not obtain indisputible evidence, photographic or otherwise. However, it is certainly exciting to see the likely emergence of an important bit of kit from a noteworthy period in the history of timekeeping, racing and Ferrari motorsports.
This may not come as a surprise, but I do not read German-language newspapers on a regular basis. Dial of a vintage Omega Constellation, pie pan. I am, however, keenly interested in a scandal involving the Swatch Group and a "Frankenwatch" Speedmaster which was sold at auction a while back for over $3 million. I won't go into all the minute details here, but the punchline is that Swatch Group bought the watch only to discover that some of its own employees may have been part of a conspiracy to assemble a watch which would be quite rare and important if it were authentic. But, apparently, it was not authentic. When the deception was uncovered, various people who were part of the "inside job" lost employment and, reportedly, legal authorities were notified in Switzerland. I originally wrote about this in 2023, you can read my coverage here . There's been excellent reporting on this matter from many sources (see, for example, this story from Bloomberg). ...
Let's get some preliminaries out of the way: I don't particularly admire or respect how Patek CEO Thierry Stern responded to criticism of Cubitus, the brand's newest release. Three pocket watches on display during the 2017 Patek Philippe Grand Exhibition in NYC. Here's what he said : “The haters are mostly people who have never had a Patek and never will, so that doesn’t bother me.” Does this remark seem filled with hubris and disrespect for potential buyers? Yes. Will it matter for Patek financially? I don't think so. Let me explain. In order to understand the financial side of watch brands, we should never forget that retail buyers are not their customers (with some rare exceptions). I know that sounds crazy, but it is 5,000% true. For a brand like Patek, the primary watch market is financially mediated. There is a third party standing between brands in Switzerland and collectors. Namely, Patek sells to authorized dealers, they don't sell to collectors....
The Wethanor building in Le Locle, screenshot credit Canal Alpha. Now and then, an event takes place which reminds us all how important security is to the watch industry. These prompts can take the form of stories about timepieces stolen on the street or during burglaries as well as thefts at watch stores or boutiques. Last week, news broke of a similar crime although this one was more unique than others. At 7:20 in the morning of Friday, February 13, armed thieves broke into a building operated by Werthanor in Le Locle, Switzerland. The window broken during the heist. Screenshot credit Canal Alpha. I wasn't personally familiar with Werthanor (and they don't really have a social media presence), but they manufacture cases and bracelets. As recently as 2023, news reports indicate that the brand Yema sources components from Werthanor. And, Watchpro suggests that Werthanor "works with the world's biggest watch brands." Indeed, according to Audemars Piguet...
Comments
Post a Comment