thank you for your great post and taking this buckle disscusion further.
The individual buckle with logo was a must have personalising tool for every luxury watch company and I think this has not changed until now.
At Heuer the buckles arrived with the Autavia and Carrera manual wind versions fitted to the cafram straps (embossed and later printed with Heuer logo) as displayed in various catalogs during the early/mid sixties. With the launch of the new and trendy racing straps the buckle was the only available tool to communicate/repeat the brand name and logo.
The buckle with little sun was used on heuer chronographs until the early 80is as the heuer portfolio was reduced and mainly equipped with steel straps ex factory.
All the nos watches of the time period of 1960 to end 70 I have seen so far had buckles with the little sun.
Interesting was the post of David showing the little sun on the right side, I have found one plaque buckle of a 1978 carrera showing the sun on the left side on top of plaque instead of swiss on the right.
I will ask Gerd Lang to find out more about the buckle supplier.
All chronograph buckles were standart 16mm regardless of the lug size.
As Abel pointed out the pin is longer and the buckle front frame is 1mm thinner on the vintage one.
I hope i did not bore you to death with the buckle insights...

Cheers

Arno
www.heuerchronographs.com

: Hello dear fellow Heuer-collectors!

: I must admit I find this "Buckle-issue" Arno has
: mentioned some days ago very interesting! I also think there are
: a lot of collectors who even don't know about these little
: details in these Heuer-buckles...

: I must confess I figured it out also quite late myself, only after
: one year I started buying/trading/collecting vintage Heuer
: wriswatches I began to notice the little differences :-)

: So, here are a few pictures from some of my Heuer-buckles;

: Here we have on top a vintage blue Corfam strap with
: original vintage Heuer buckle, in the middle a "New"
: Heuer buckle on Tropic strap. The lower strap is a genuine strap
: with an 18mm Heuer buckle;
:
:

: Here's the inside from the vintage buckle, notice the little
: sun;
:
:

: Here are two pictures from the inside of the "more
: recent" Heuer buckles. The second picture is from a buckle
: I bought very recently;
:
:
:
:

: And this is the inside of the 18mm Heuer-buckle;
:
:

: Buckle-gathering;
:
:
: Notice the three last buckles in the pictures (so the ones starting
: on top in the picture). Look at the pin, you'll notice this is
: more straight then with the other buckles in the picture. The
: other ones are more curvy and a bit shorter. This is another
: difference which can indicate whether it's a real vintage buckle
: or a more recent example.

: So, this being said...I still have some questions left :-) I hope
: Arno or someone else can provide us with some correct answers or
: at least some guesses!

: * When was the first buckle with the Heuer-shield (as we still
: know today) introduced?

: * Untill what date the Heuer buckles were punched with the little
: sun inside?

: * The vintage buckles came in different sizes (I know 12mm, 14mm
: and 16mm). But when was the 18mm Heuer buckle introduced?

: * Are there some more varieties/differences? I am pretty convinced
: there still are some more differences in details which haven't
: been discussed here yet, just check this post from David D from
: some weeks ago:
: http://chronocentric.com/forums/heuer/index.cgi?read=25804

: Well, I already look forward to any reply or answers,
: Groetjes,
: Abel.