Hi, this is my first post here, many thanks to David for introducing me to this forum. I bought a Heuer Monaco CS2110 few months ago from ebay Australia. The seller is reputable but there is no box/papers, and he is not the first owner of the watch. I have been enjoying wearing the watch (rotate with TH GC cal 17 & TH F1 chrono), for its distinguished square case and clean dial look. Although i have to admit i prefer the more iconic blue dial CW2113 i used to have. My joy turns to doubt when i opened the case and showed it to my friend. He's quite certain the movement is not 100% genuine. His argument is plates in TAG Heuer movement usually uses steel in silver color with stripes pattern and fish-scales pattern. While mine is gold color with stripes pattern and plain silver steel. He admitted there are some similarities in the movement so his next guess is that the movement has been modified and some original parts were replaced. I agree that it looks different from other TAG's movement i used to know, but for me it doesn't always mean it's not genuine. My only assumption is that it's produced in 90s so maybe back then TAG Heuer had different design. I have compared the outer parts (case, dials, back case, buckle etc) with pictures from the internet including from www.calibre11.com and i'm confident that they are the same as the original except for the leather band which is a replacement. Unfortunately from google i cannot find pictures of the movement for the same type of watch to confirm my (hopefully not his) opinion. As there was an article in www.calibre11.com on this watch few years ago, i do hope David has pictures of the movement to compare with mine, and will be more than happy to read his opinion and rationales on this matter. Will appreciate comments from other forum members as well, of course. Thanks.
Hi, On balance, I think the watch is OK for these reasons: 1. I don't see any obvious signs that the case/ dial are fakes- they look OK from these photos. Some of the detailing looks a little rough, but that could be the photo quality. A "fake" would typically have fake dial/ case as well as movement. 2. I don't agree that TAG Heuer don't (or didn't) use Gold rotors, although it's true that steel is more usual. Here is a Calibre 17 movement sold by a Swedish watch parts website This is a Calibre 17, same as yours, although there are two flavours of Calibre 17. The one above is a 3-register version, the ETA 2894-2. Yours is the two-register 2894. You can read more about this movement here, although note the article focuses on the 3-reg 2894-2 from a watch a couple of years newer than yours: http://www.calibre11.com/tag-heuer-calibre-17-review-eta-2894/ The cotes de geneve pattern on the rotor above is the same as yours. 3. Here is a photo from the 2000 TAG Heuer Catalogue showing the Calibre 7 movement, which is an ETA 2892...the same base movement as the Calibre 17. From the rotor side this movement should be almost identical to your movement (the chronograph module is mounted on the other side). Ignore the jewel count- there are more jewels in the chronograph version than in the watch, so expect these to be different 4. Lastly, the reality is that back in 1997 when your watch was made, the level of finishing was not as high as it is today, as no-one figured anyone would ever see the movement, which was hidden behind a steel caseback. So the now-normal perlage detailing wasn't always there. You should check your movement to see if there is a movement number and/ or an ETA stamp, as that would help confirm things. I think I can see that it says "2894 2". I have seen some some 2-register 2894s marked as "2894-2" (see below from Longines), even though common convention uses that name for the 3-register. dc
Thanks for reply. 100% agree with you that if it's a replica, then the case, dial should show it. My friend showed me a good replica of TAG Aquaracer and if you don't pay attention it looks genuine, but details will tell you that it's not. Glad to see other movement of TAG Heuer with identical gold-rotor and design to support my opinion. In the first picture there is a movement number 2984-2 and stamp similar to ETA stamp (i don't have magnifying glass to confirm it, though).