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.
What it might look like if Aragon and Argon watches actually went to court over the trademark dispute. My prior post described a disappointing development for those collectors hoping to acquire an Argon Spaceone watch via the brand's Kickstarter campaign. The campaign had reached over $1 million in funding when Kickstarter's management stepped in and froze the whole thing over an "intellectual property dispute." When I posted about this development on Instagram , Hodinkee editor Tony Traina noted in the comments that another brand, Aragon watches, had filed a complaint with the US Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) back in April (thanks Tony!). Argon's account replied and indicated that they had already filed a registration for their brand name and they were retaining counsel in New York City. On Tuesday, June 27 of this week, more details were offered via a lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The case is filed on behalf
Rolex's relationship with automotive racing is, at this point, very well-established. A Tudor sponsored car taking the checkered flag in Japan. A clearer photo is later in the post. Formula 1 and Rolex marked a decade of official partnership this year. One of the brand's most successful designs is named after a famous race: the Daytona (500). And, the record-setting Paul Newman Rolex Daytona which sold at auction in 2017 was worn by Newman during his illustrious career on the race track. In this post I will detail a lesser-known relationship between Rolex and automotive racing. In the 1960's through the 1970's, Tudor and Rolex sponsored at least one race car in Japan. I initially learned about this sponsorship through my conversation with Elias, which was also the basis for my prior post on Tudor. While I am not the first to write on the subject of Rolex/Tudor auto racing in Japan (for example, see the posts here and here ), I believe this post will be one of th
Among many avid watch collectors, the term "in house movement" seems to elicit eyerolling disdain. Pieces of an assortment, including balance spring, from a non-Swiss movement. There is a sizeable perception that "in house" is, in fact, nothing more than an unnecessary marketing ploy designed to tease more money out of the wallet of buyers (by way of definition, an "in house" movement means that the mechanism inside a watch was predominently manufactured by a brand itself, kind of like "we make our own bread" at a restaurant). I'll confess that I'd begun to think similarly, that is, until I read a 66 page report posted by the Swiss Competition Commision on May 10, 2023. Yes, this is the kind of thing an economist finds interesting on a weekend, or at least this economist. Before we get into the details of this report, in the interest of full disclosure I should say that the original document was in a different language: lawyerese.
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