Hi Brian,
: we have studied these pretty extensively over the last two years, I
: will try to summarise the outcome briefly.
: The 1163 was introduced 1969 as Chronomatic MH and T and was
: running out at least in Europe in 1976, last mention as end of
: series in a Dutch catalog 1976.
: Jeff do you have any info how long the 1163 was available in the US
: ?
: Our studies revealed that Heuer made changes to the cases (size and
: design of pusher integration), hands (steel, steel with inserts,
: blue and red tipped) and dials (steel index, indexes with
: inlays, 3,6,9 vs 1 to 12 hour subdials) every year, hence
: together with the serial numbers it helps to determine pretty
: closely the year of manufacture.
: When Heuer decided to participate in the Viceroy promotion (would
: be a no go today to get linked to a cigarette brand, times have
: changed..) a new model was quickly developed by creating the
: 1163 V, which was developed out of the 1163 MH just by changing
: the bezel from minutes and hours to the obviously more race
: linked tachy bezel borrowed from the 1163 T which we call
: Siffert today.
: During the Viceroy cigarette campaign Heuer offered the new model
: for a hefty discount, if I remember correctly it was 88 $ versus
: 276 $ for the standard MH or T. Therefore the MH (Derek Bell)
: model, which just differed in bezel must have been pretty
: unsellable in the US, which explains that most of the new old
: stock MHs we have seen recently came from the US.
: After purchase of a carton of Viceroys people could send a coupon
: to collect the discounted Autavia Viceroy, which took the
: position in the portfolio until the late seventies as an economy
: model.
: As you can imagine Heuer was suddenly confronted with a heftly pull
: from the US market and had to react quickly to fullfill demand
: and brought in beside Piquerez a new case supplier Schmitz.
: This would have been around mid 71 to 72.
: Now back to your questions, when you look at the 1163 vs the 1163 V
: you see that the pusher housings are different, further the
: typo/ printing on the tachymeter bezel is slightly different and
: the case parameters differ a few millimeters. Backcases had a
: different design. However the dials have the same measurement as
: have the hands.
: Also the movement was changed from Caliber 11 to Caliber 12 and
: Jeff wrote a great piece about these changes.
: After 1972 Heuer marked all 1163 cases with a V because this was
: the volume model, therefore we find later Sifferts and Bells
: showing the 1163 V, obviously there was a grey period when older
: 1163 signed cases were used up as we have learned studiing new
: old stock watches.
: Regarding the value I don't think it makes a great difference some
: people like the older signed cases however it is more important
: to look at the condition.
: I hope this answers your questions...
: Cheers
: Arno
