A trademark dispute was also my first thought. I just checked the German trade mark register: They are listing a national word mark by Luxembourg Brands S.à r.l. for Nice Class 16, which That might relate to Rotring or its current owner Newell (that also own other well known brands like Parker, Waterman, Sharpie, Marmot and of course Rubbermaid). I cannot see a connection of this trademark to watches. (But maybe in countries that are not covered in the German register?) Interestingly LVMH applied for the EU word mark for ISOGRAPH on June 27, 2019 only, which seems quite late from my point of view. The current status is: "Ex Officio examination completed but third parties opposition or observations possible" The opposition period will end on December 29, 2019. Greg
Yes, I just know Jory 'The Time Teller' Goodman, who 'never talks about TAG Heuer', will be itching to get his teeth into this...
The BB is a nice watch although maybe it’s not fair to pit it against the Isograph. There are many watches in that price range and the Autavia is a much bolder development than the BB imo.
It will be interesting to hear the official company line on this issue. I will probably be highly suspicious of whatever they say. I find it unlikely that pairing the Isograph hairspring with a Caliber 5 cannot be done, especially considering I have 2 performing great. I think they are just having production issues with the Isograph and getting low yields for useable hairsprings. With low yields, their costs for this hairspring are probably out of control and they would have had to raise the price of the Autavia Isograph significantly. Instead they are just choosing to remove the Isograph rather than increase the price. Perhaps the leaked Autavia Isograph flyback chronograph could still hit the market if they price it high enough.
Paul Pluta a.k.a Archie Archibald the III will recind his alliance with Tag Heuer And so on and so on...
It appears that TAG Heuer haven't changed the part numbers for the new watches, which seems a bit odd as it's materially different. But then I guess they'd have to redo all the casebacks...
OK, just pulling things together...will have this posted later this evening (NZT). We covered the future of the Heuer 01, the Grand Carrera Heuer 03XT (remember that?), the Isograph...and a few other things
Ah right, thanks for clarifying that... I think it would be a bit odd to keep the same numbers as it is materially different. Look forward to reading your interview, especially about the Heuer 03XT. What's the latest on the return of the 'Grand Carrera', or is that part of the Heuer 03XT story?
Great article, you did a great job (as always). I am excited to see where Guy Bove is going to take the design language in the future. I very much like his previous work, and really we haven’t seen much of his signature yet as the product out now was already in development when he joined TAG.
Well...looks like my Isograph Autavia is going to be a rare breed! Maybe will jump in value over the years ! But honestly, it gets the most of my wrist time anymore. I’m at a conference this weekend and only have my Air King with me and I keep looking down at my wrist and wishing it was my Autavia Isograph
Great article. I wish he would have asked how many of the Autavia Isographs were shipped or sold. I would love to know how many are floating around in the wild. There can't be that many. I know my AD had to ship them back almost as soon as he got them. He told me he only sold 1 in that short time and I think he only received 2. I am really happy I was able to get 2 of these rare birds.
I really would love to know how many out there as well. The article hinted to “a few thousand” but how many of those got into end use consumer hands like ours
