Way down at the bottom of this blog, possibly in the first post, there is a picture of a Heuer 1550 SG I once owned. I don't know about you, but I have a pretty firm No Repeats rule, which keeps me from buying the same watch twice. If I didn't like it enough to keep it the first time, why would I buy it again? I loved that Heuer Bund but I used it in trade for an equally fantastic military-issued chronograph, which had been a grail for a long time too. Although I missed the Heuer, the Lemania I traded it for was a simply fantastic watch, and I convinced myself it was a good move. Not a mistake, exactly, but it definitely felt like future unfinished business.

My Heuer was an instant favorite and accompanied me on a lot of adventures. If you haven't owned one of these because the 43 mm case size put you off, let me attempt to change your mind. It is a 43 mm case, that's true, but they are thin and flat, and the lugs are perfectly proportioned. The result is a very close-fitting and comfortable watch. Not a wrist tank at all. Here is a picture of mine that I took on one of many trips to northern Michigan on which it was the perfect traveling companion.

And some pictures I took of it in a light box one time for fun.

Long after the watch and I parted ways, I learned that it most likely was put back into service in the Bundeswehr with the service dial and hands that it originally came to me with, those pictured above. But before I knew this, and out of a genuine but unnecessary sense of returning my Heuer to a more 'original' state, I sourced a tritium dial for it in Germany and had it installed on the watch. From then on, it looked like this:

A pictoral review of the Heuer Bundeswehr chronograph and it's many dial variations ©2003 W. Manning Updates: Dec 2005, May 2006, Jun 2006, Aug 2006, Oct 2008, Feb 2009, Apr 2012. There is a serial number on the case back in addition to the watch model number so identifying which is significant is the only tricky part. Like Breitling, Tag Heuer watch models begin with letters, but the serial numbers can too, so it is typically the number “on top” or above the second listed number. In 2008, Rolex stopped engraving the serial number at the case 6 o’clock location, using only the serial engraving on the rehaut. By 2010, this had come to become the case for all Rolex models. The serial number of modern Rolex watches don’t have the serial number between the 6 o clock side between the lugs, but only on the inner rehaut. Each and every TAG Heuer watch is issued with a serial number. This number is engraved on the back of your timepiece's case, often beneath the TAG logo. Depending on the model, your number may not be legible with the naked eye and some magnification might be required to read the digits.

In this iteration of the watch, the warm tritium dial didn't match the cooler color of the service hands, but this isn't uncommon with Heuer Bunds because of their military service history and it didn't really bother me. But, ironically, the modification made me less happy with the watch as a whole, not more happy. I had to admit that although I had started out with the best of intentions, what I had done didn't add value. So when the opportunity to make a trade for a totally original Lemania 6BB came up, one that allowed me to recoup my overall investment in the Heuer, I decided to wash my hands of it and start fresh.

But I always knew I’d come back to the Heuer Bund and I resolved to make a better decision the second time around. So I started doing my Heuer homework again, and after copious amounts of research and review, I was left feeling something less than excited and optimistic; depressed and confused were more like it. The Heuer-dialed watches are a minefield of frankens, put-togethers, outright fakes, and falsely modified dials (e.g., the non-genuine addition of the circle-3H to a plain dial by an unscrupulous seller). But my research also led me to learn more about the Sinn-dialed Bundeswehr watches, more than I had ever known before.

Now, it’s widely known that Sinn had the contract to service these watches for the Bundeswehr in the 1980’s. The point was to keep the watches in use; no one was thinking about the watch as a future collectible. At some point in the 1990’s many Heuer 1550 SG watches were sold to the public directly by Sinn. No one appears to know how many or what dials these watches had, however, and a search of your favorite forum will produce multiple threads on the topic.

From what I have gathered, the small T dial was the original. The dials were then officially modified with the addition of the circle-3H to make the occupational hazard of tritium more readily apparent to people handling the watches, and at some point many of the watches were redialed altogether with service dials that used no tritium, so they had no small T and no circle-3H. All told, there are perhaps thirty different dial variations seen on these watches.

In addition to enthusiast discussion on the forums, the bigger blogs have all picked up on the Heuer Bund recently, and the collective voice is busy sorting out what exactly constitutes a genuine Heuer Bund. To make matters even more confusing, for reasons no one really seems to understand the market for these watches appears to prize New-Old-Stockness, and eschews the normal wear and tear you might expect on a 40-50 year old watch that has seen military service. This motivates the market in a certain way, not always good.

It was all of this that was swirling around in my head when I decided to look into buying another Heuer Bund, and this time I formulated a new strategy. Rather than looking for an “original” Heuer watch, an elusive concept at best, I decided to find a Sinn. Yes, a Sinn. Although the Sinn-dialed watches are certainly less sought after by Heuer collectors and probably military watch collectors in general, they have a definite appeal to Sinn collectors.

What's more, in my view the Sinn dial sidesteps the whole originality issue. Of course it's not original. Anyone of any level of expertise can tell that a Heuer watch that says Sinn on the dial is not original. What it is, however, is a beautifully built watch that may or may not have seen actual military service in its current form, but certainly did in a past form. And in the case of my particular specimen anyway, it is freshly serviced by a master watchmaker at Sinn, the only remaining master watchmaker at Sinn who originally worked on these watches back when Sinn serviced them for the Bundeswehr. And interestingly, the case on my watch does in fact appear to be completely original. It has a low serial number and appears to have never been refinished or even polished. Ironic, considering I had decided not to get too hung up on this in my purchase criteria. The case on my Sinn is so original, you can still see the machining marks left over from the press that I presume stamped it out. The bezel has a pleasing amount of wear from its time in service, and the dial's lume is aging in a charming way and matches that of the hands exactly.

Perhaps nicest of all, I know the provenance of the watch back to the pilot who owned and used it in Germany. It doesn't get much cooler than that. On to some pictures.

Here we see the side of the unpolished, unrestored case:

The NSN indicating the watch was originally issued as a kit with a Bundeswehr strap:

Fantastic dial details and lume that is even and equally aged with the hands:

Case reference 1550 SG is typically lightly engraved:

I am always happy to meet other enthusiasts. If I have something factually incorrect above, please feel free to contact me. Thanks for reading!

The first rule of buying a TAG Heuer watch? Don’t buy one that doesn’t have a serial number. If you do, you’re bringing home a fake (although just to be clear, a serial number in itself doesn’t guarantee authenticity. A watch with a serial number might still be fake. It’s just that one without definitely is). Every single TAG Heuer watch that leaves the factory is stamped with a serial number (these days at least… back in the days before imitation watches became big business, neither TAG Heuer nor many other watchmakers bothered). Unlike model numbers that are generic to every piece that comes from a certain collection, the serial number is unique to each particular watch. No two watches in any collection from any period will ever share the same serial number. In this way, the serial number becomes an easy, simple way to authenticate a watch. Find the serial number, and you’re just a few seconds away from finding out when the watch was manufactured, which model it relates to, ownership details, and so on.

Where can I find my TAG Heuer serial number?

Despite the serial number being the source of some great information, TAG Heuer doesn’t exactly advertise it in a prominent way. If you’ve never noticed it on any TAG Heuer watch you’ve owned, you wouldn’t be the only one. But once you know exactly where to look, it shouldn’t take you too long to locate it.

Flip the watch over. Providing the watch isn’t either a very bad imitation or a very old, potentially priceless piece from the very early days of Heuer, you should see two sets of numbers engraved on the caseback. The numbers will typically be stacked one on top of the other. The top number is the model number, sometimes referred to as the reference number. This signifies the model of the watch. All watches of the same model will bear this same number. The bottom number is your unique serial number. Usually, the serial number will consist of two or three letters followed by four numbers (e.g., AB1234). But don’t panic if it doesn’t follow this exact format. For every rule, there’s an exception. In this case, the exception is TAG Heuer’s fondness for using no letters and 6 numbers for certified chronometers (e.g., 123489). You might also come across the occasional serial number that features a combination of 3 letters and 3 numbers (e.g., HAF455) or 3 letters and 6 numbers (e.g., ABC134679).

As crownandcaliber.com notes, there’s rarely enough room for watches with an exhibition caseback to display both the model number and serial number on the back. The model number will therefore usually stand-alone to the right of the displayed movement, while the serial number will be engraved on the edge of the caseback. Watches from the Connected series will always have a serial number that starts with ‘PE’, ‘GL’, ‘AN’, or SC. Although the serial number will feature on the caseback in the usual way, you can also find it on the watch itself by swiping down and selecting ‘Settings’, tapping ‘System’, then ‘About’ and finally ‘Serial number’.

I can’t find the serial number. Should I be worried?

Engravings are sometimes rendered so small, it becomes almost impossible to see the serial number clearly. In these cases, you might need a loupe or magnifying glass to work it out. If you’ve tried this and still had no luck in finding the number, you’re looking at one of a few possible scenarios.

Number 1. It’s a really old watch. If it’s a brand new, fresh from the shelf watch, the only reason it wouldn’t have a serial number is either because it’s a fake or someone’s really messed up at the factory. But if it’s a very old, very rare vintage piece, it could fall into the pre-serial number era. That said, watches like this are rarer than hen’s teeth these days, so it’s worth looking at other possibilities before automatically assuming that the lack of serial number is down to the age of the watch.

Number 2. The serial number has been buffed or polished away. Now, it’s natural for pre-owned pieces to show a bit of wear. But it’s not natural for the previous owner to have polished and buffed the caseback vigorously enough to have completely removed any trace of the serial number. If there’s evidence of this, it suggests that they or someone else hasn’t wanted the watch to be traced. Most of the time, this means it’s been obtained by less than legitimate means.

Number 3. It’s fake. If you’re dealing with a modern watch, there are zero reasons for it to not have a serial number. Every single TAG Heuer watch that’s made these days comes with a serial number. If you find one without, it suggests that wherever it came from, it wasn’t an official TAG Heuer factory. Simply put, TAG Heuer doesn’t make TAG Heuer watches without serial numbers. But other people do. And by and large, these aren’t the kind of people that are on good terms with the law.

Does a serial number guarantee authenticity?

The absence of a serial number on a new TAG Heuer watch signifies one thing and one thing only. It’s a fake. But the principle doesn’t always work in reverse. As millenarywatches.com notes, just because a TAG Heuer watch has a serial number doesn’t guarantee it’s authentic. Think about it – if counterfeiters are able to build an entire watch that’s close enough to the real thing to convince you it’s exactly that, do you really think it’s going to be that hard for them to engrave a few letters on the back of the caseback? And not just any old letters either – most of the more experienced counterfeiters have access to the entire back catalog of TAG Heuer serial numbers. All they have to do is pick a number that correlates to the model they’ve imitated, and bingo – anyone who enters the number onto an online serial number database will think the watch is genuine.

While the serial number is a great way of finding out information about a watch, it’s not the be-all and end-all of confirming authenticity. As TAG Heuer notes on its official website, ‘a model name and a serial number are not sufficient to guarantee the authenticity of a TAG Heuer timepiece. It is also necessary to examine several aspects of security and movement.’ The serial number is a great way of finding out more about your watch. But if you rely on it as your only means of spotting a fake from the real deal, you’re asking for trouble.

Heuer Bundeswehr Serial Numbers Online

Heuer Bundeswehr Serial Numbers Lookup

Heuer Bundeswehr Serial Numbers 222