TAG Heuer 273.306 / 2000 Series
TAG Heuer 273.306 Chrono Tachy / 2000 Series. c1986-90
Originally designed under Heuer, the 2000 series chronographs are great watches, personally I think they are stunning. The size and balance is spot on. This is a rarely seen model, which has a tachy scale bezel. These are more regularly seen with a Minute bezel, but is actually a different model number. As I mentioned, these were also sold as Heuers, and was marketed with the Pilot. Apart from in the catalogues, I’ve never seen a Heuer version , ever.. in fact, I’ve never seen another one of these in TAG guise. (Specifically with the Tachy bezel).
They are stunning in the flesh, with the silver subdials with concentric grooved circles. I particularly love the triangular hour markers, I’ve said it before about these early 2000 designs, they have a military/tool-ness to them, these have gone a delectable creamy colour too. The fluted pushes hints back to the early Heuers, and I know it sounds silly.. but you can see the DNA of the early Heuer Autavias in the design, with the charcoal/black dial and grooved sub dials. Again, this features the ‘super-quartz’ Calibre. 185 movement – it uses the Dubois Depraz 2000 chronograph module mated with a quartz engine.
A fellow collector (Thanks Rob) also pointed out that the dial is marked ‘Chronograph’ like on the earlier Heuer versions, TAG Heuer changed the lettering to ‘Professional’, so I can only deduct that this is a very early version from c1986.
I can’t actually find this in any TAG Heuer catalogue, primarily because they aren’t archived online or with collectors as much as the Heuer versions are. It is however seen in pre-TAG guise here on OTD. It’s brothers, with Minute bezels (273.206 & 273.006) can be seen in the 1990 TAG Heuer catalogue on OTD.
Heuerville 
A proud owner of this watch (actually my father was wearing this but gifted to me about 13 years ago), thanks for this post… I had looked every corner of the web but couldn’t find any article or picture of this model… I think it’s one of the best TH watches (if not the best one!) and everything in this model, as you said, is in balance!
Arm
November 1, 2011 at 3:43 pm
Arm, thanks for your comment. Yes, it’s crazy.. if you Google the model number, nothing comes up (well it does now, for this post & photos). But prior to this post, there seems to be no mention of it anywhere online. It’s rarely seen, and a wonderful timepiece. Enjoy it.
Heuerville
November 1, 2011 at 3:49 pm
I owned this watch TAG Heuer 273.306 from 1990-93, I am an automatic watch enthusiast but this quartz watch was all I could afford back in the day but a fantastic sight to behold on my wrist. It was stolen in a house burglary in the Withington district of Manchester in 1993. I have never forgotten as it was my first top quality watch that I spent 1 year saving for, out of my pitiful NHS salary (I was a hospital technician). I loved and pampered this watch like it were a new born baby. The burglary basically catalysed my decision to leave my birthplace and begin a new life in London.
tnt
January 25, 2015 at 10:40 am
one of my favorite watches, i it new for 400 €, but it was the Automatik ETA2836 Version and i built in a Saphire Christal glas. one of my first expensive watches.
Michael
February 20, 2015 at 7:29 am
Hello,
I recently came across a 2000 series chrono with a black tachy bezel, a WHITE dial with stick (not arrow/ no diamond @12) markers. Case back is void of any model #. I can’t seem to find anything online. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
Dave
February 20, 2015 at 11:06 am
Not sure on exact ref Dave, but have a look through the catalogues, it’s probably in there: http://www.calibre11.com/tag-heuer-catalogues/
Heuerville
February 20, 2015 at 1:27 pm
i have the gold version of this watch, Tag Heuer 2000 Series Quartz Chronograph Watch Dubois Depraz Calibre 185 since they came out, had it some 30 years, i wonder if you know why the chronograph second hand wont zero back to the 12 oclock position, goes back some 10 seconds i.e. the 10 everything else seems fine. cheers Paul
Paul Abbott
April 8, 2016 at 10:03 pm
My father left me his watch, sadly passing away at my house peacefully in his sleep. It is exactly the same watch, probably a later model because of the word “professionel” instead of “chronograph” He bought it in Switzerland where we lived. the back is graphite- blue, very pretty; the rest seems absolutely identical, metal bracelet, tachymeter bezel, etc. 273.306.
I’ll put a pix whenever I’ll figure out how to. Andreas
andreas
April 6, 2017 at 5:20 am
I inherited the automatic version of this exact watch (ref. 173.306 ) from my grandfather and I absolutely adore it. sadly it is really hard to find any information on these watches, especially the automatic models and as far as I could tell its excruciatingly difficult to even try to price these things because of the huge bandwidth of different models ( Quartz, automatic, gold, steel, white dia, black dial, Heuer branding on the dial,TAG branding on the dial, tachy bezel, minute bezel, etc. ) The only thing I can do is rest assure that I’ll never give this treasure away.
P.S.: I am incredibly grateful for every day this thing continues to run as well as it does xD I really dont know how much TAG Heuer would charge nowadays for a service or even repair of a really old ETA-Movement in combination with that DD chrono-modlue ( I’ve heard that chorno-modlues are an absolute pain in the ass to de- and reassamble)
Constantin
February 7, 2020 at 5:07 pm
where can I find this watch?
Izzy
April 27, 2020 at 4:23 pm
There are currently only two of those available for sale on chrono24. If youre looking for the model with the tachymeter bezel then youre sadly out of luck. the only one that I, after very very extensive searching, ever found is the one in my own personal collection.
Constantin
April 27, 2020 at 11:27 pm