With an illustrious history stretching back to 1860, perfect replica TAG Heuer have made an awful lot of watches over the years. Consequently, the brand’s museum in La Chaux de Fonds features over 3000 models that have been released, either by Heuer or the modern incarnation of the brand. As part of his role as Heritage Director of luxury fake TAG Heuer, Nicholas Biebuyck is, of course, intimately familiar with this vast collection and dotes on them with understandable pride. But we wanted Nick to play favourites. That’s why we posed this theoretical question: if the best 1:1 replica TAG Heuer museum was on fire and he could only save three watches from the blaze, which timepieces would he pick?
Pick 1: Steve McQueen’s Monaco
“I’d have to pick one of the Steve McQueen Monacos that were used during the filming of Le Mans,” Nick says. “One sold in December 2020 for US$2.2 million.”
Introduced in 1969, aaa quality fake TAG Heuer Monaco was a game-changer. Not only was it one of the first self-winding chronograph wristwatches, housing Heuer’s legendary Caliber 11, it was also the world’s first water-resistant square-cased watch. Designed by Jack Heuer, the high quality copy watch would go on to be chosen by McQueen as the authentic chronograph of choice for his racing driver character in Le Mans. The piece worn by the actor himself is far too significant to perish in the flames.
Pick 2: Ronnie Peterson’s Carrera
“I’d also have to pick Ronnie Peterson’s Gold Carrera,” Nick admits. “We’re very lucky to have that in the museum.”
In the 1970s, Peterson was a Swedish racing driver and a two-time runner-up in the Formula One World Drivers’ Championship. “Sometime around 1975, Jack Heuer gifted Ronnie a solid gold Carrera on the bracelet with an unusual dial. And on the back it was engraved, ‘Success / Ronnie Peterson from Jack Heuer’.” Nick explains. “It became the Swiss movement replica TAG Heuer that Ronnie wore regularly.
In 2016, the chronograph sold for more than 10 times its estimate to achieve CCHF225,000 at Phillips’ sale of important super clone watches online. “The museum was lucky enough to acquire it,” Nicholas says. “So that’s a very, very important watch.”