Rich

Not sure if they went on sale or not. As you say Arno, they're not
: in brochures - I had a look through the pricelists I have too,
: as they are often a good place to find more obscure watches that
: don't make it to the catalogues, but nothing in there either.

: The reference on the sticker in this watch is quite interesting -
: unless I'm mistaken, it reads 74031 rather than the 74033
: of the steel watches? So it might come before their release,
: which the Monaco table has as 1974.

: Now, another introduction for 1974 was the PVD barrel Carrera
: 110.571 NC, so it looks as if the PVD Monaco predates the PVD
: Carrera (the serials are lower than I expect for 110.571s too).

: So we have PVD Carreras going on general sale shortly after these
: Monacos, and evidenced in brochures and price lists, whereas the
: Monaco isn't. I begin to wonder whether the Monaco was a proof
: of concept of PVD coating for Heuer, and the lessons they
: learned went forward into the Carrera. Given the coating
: technology of the time, it was almost certainly easier to coat
: an oval watch with round edges than a square one with sharp
: edges.

: There are a lot of detail similarities between the two watches:

:
:

:
:

: Note the hands and the lume "stick" markers in
: particular.

: So, all speculation of course, but I think it entirely possible
: that the Monaco was a true prototype, evaluated by Heuer staff,
: friends, family etc (the reference line on the sticker appears
: to say "1 pce", i.e. "1 piece" rather than
: the serial number we expect) with maybe a few sold to the
: general public and the end result for public consumption was the
: Carrera rather than a Monaco. Having said that, it's not at all
: easy to find 110.571s either...