I agree, and think nobody could actually disagree, that having actual and reliable production numbers would be a dream come true for all collectors.
Mr. Heuer himself, while providing a rough estimate from memory in terms of 'a few thousands' at the maximum for any specimen, confirmed that in those times no such records were kept.
The historical memory of Heuer for those times, the recently retired gentleman that is Mr. Jean Jacques Racine, could offer no further help when questioned , and we can fairly assume he is the equivalent of a Supreme Court on the topic as it were.
So unless someone sometime unearths a hidden box with such records from the basement of the old Heuer premises, I guess we'll have to live without them ;-)!
On the other hand I do agree that the SPY that Jeff so cleverly has devised is as good as proxy as we could hope for. In the end, what should matter most is how rare the watches are now, and how often you could reasonably think of finding another one in the expected conditions.
Cheers.
Fabrizio

: Darren:

: I agree with you that it would be worthwhile to have production
: numbers for our beloved Heuer chronographs. For the purists /
: historians, this is the crucial data (whether we are counting
: Ferrari GTOs, violins or the rarest bottles of wine).

: I am just about convinced that there is no reliable information of
: this type; not in Heuer's records; not in anyone's memory;
: nowhere. There may be data on some models (for example, the
: original Viceroys), but this will be far from complete.

: Accordingly, I am resolved to the fact that all that we have is
: "Samples Per Year" (SPY) . . . meaning, the number of
: samples that modern-day collectors can expect to find offered
: for sale, over the course of a year. In the end, maybe that's
: all that matters.

: Jeff

: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++