Heuer has now become a household name - albeit under different ownership than founded it, namely TAG Heuer, which took over in the mid-1980s. The pewter-cased 1991 TAG Heuer 3000 Ref. 932.213 diver here is a great example of a design TAG didn’t mess with after it assumed control of the company, before it began making some...questionable design choices (like collabs with random "hypebeast" clothing brands).
But none of that here...
The Ref. 932 diver here represents old-school Heuer design, in a mid-sized package. 1980's TAG Heuer divers, in particular divers like this one, are not common in any condition, and for good reason - they represent a bygone era for Heuer.
Given the parlous state of the Swiss watchmaking industry in the early 1980s, it likely made sense to TAG Heuer to eek out as many model variants as possible using as few unique parts as possible – however while the 1000 and 2000 series were popular, lasting several decades, the 3000 was only on sale for just over five. The 3000 design is essentially a development of the successful 2000-series launched in 1982, with the 3000 featuring squared curves to create a more technical looking watch.
TAG Heuer managed to scale down all the elements of its highly popular 980 dive watch series - produced beginning in 1979 through 1982 - to make a stunning dive watch, never an easy feat. The attention to detail and quality is remarkable, and seems more of an achievement with these smaller Heuer cases. Heuer built these divers to high standards, and rendered these waterproof to 200m – just like their elder siblings.
Birthed under the Heuer brand, the 3000 series carried over when TAG purchased the company and left the 3000 largely unchanged, apart from the obvious TAG Heuer logo. Complementing the angular case was a large 12-sided bezel that sat inside the width of the watch. While not as wide as the case itself, the bezel is very thick, and features small ball-shaped grips at each corner to make it easier to turn.
Heuer also debuted, at the same time, chronographs and three handers in quartz and automatic variations (chronographs only, as Heuer produced no automatic three hander 3000s). The all-steel grey model here is the least common colorway of the range, and is in excellent condition.
Per Hodinkee in "Why The Heuer Diver Professional Deserves A Lot More Credit Than It Gets," "Its stunning success was unexpected and came at the best possible time for the company. In Jack Heuer’s own words: 'We could not imagine that this model would be the very watch that was to help the company recover.' Surprisingly, this glorious hero was not a chronograph – hell, most of the time it's powered by a quartz movement. So let's settle this injustice and look at a relatively obscure diving watch, despite it being a bestseller from 1979 to this very day. This is the Heuer Diver Professional."
For a brief history of these amazing Heuer divers, we turn to a fascinating Hodinkee article, “A Personal Note: Marking Time With A Humble Heuer” - “In 1980, Heuer decided it was time to build a proper dive watch. Sure, years earlier, it had fitted its "Automotive-Aviation" Autavia chronograph with a diving bezel, but the brand was largely focused on motorsports watches, which is where it had built its reputation."
But in the late 1970s, as Jack Heuer tells it in his autobiography, “The Times Of My Life (2013),” Heuer was at a sporting goods trade show in Europe and was approached by a diving equipment company having trouble finding quality dive watches.
Before that fateful show, Heuer was not doing well as a company and its situation had begun deteriorating as early as late 1974 (along with most of the Swiss watchmaking industry, badly hit by the quartz crisis caused by Seiko). Quartz watches were more technically advanced than mechanical watches, and at a lower price point too, making them fierce competitors for the traditional Swiss companies.
It is in this grim context Jack Heuer saw an opportunity at that 1979 sporting goods trade show. Heuer got the idea to address a recurrent complaint voiced regarding the difficulty in finding reliable private label watches for underwater sports – Heuer’s expertise at this time was racing chronographs, but it took the challenge regardless, and teamed up with French supplier G. Monnin.
Per Heuer, “To our great surprise our new diving watches were very well received by the market." So much so, in fact, that the following year Heuer began offering the Diver Professional in four different sizes and a multitude of dial configurations
This Heuer comes on a leather-backed canvas strap, and with nylon strap, spring bar tool, and rugged travel case.
1991 TAG Heuer 3000 Ref. 932.213 Diver
DIAL: TAG Heuer-signed dial and "Mercedes" hands; date at 3 o’clock position functions as designed. Dial lume - including bezel pip - glows.
BEZEL: Unidirectional bezel in good condition with all markings legible, ratchets w/a satisfying click. Inlaid “pip” remains, and in good condition. Please note none of the black ball grips on the bezel are missing, atypical for these watches.
CASE: TAG Heuer mid-size unisex matte-color pewter case measures 38mm x 40mm; caseback retains crisp engravings.
CRYSTAL: Correct crystal, no cracks or scratches.
BAND: This Heuer comes on a leather-backed beige canvas strap; it also comes with a red, black, and white nylon strap.
MOVEMENT: TAG Heuer-signed Ref. 1.88 ETA quartz movement, manufactured in 1991.
CROWN: Heuer-signed screw-down locking crown.