Great observations, as always . . . I am still at the office, but will study the black Montreal dial tonight, to see exactly what is there and what is not, in terms of the detail.

Without studying any watches, in the metal or from the C-drive, I had one quick reaction to your observation about the quality of the Montreal dials. It's simply that Heuer seemed to have some inconsistency in terms of the quality of its dials (or perhaps even in their specifications).

I have had nearly-identical 2447S Carreras -- from the same general time period and with the same quality of "preservation" -- side by side, and the finishes on the dials have been very different, one with flat paint and the other with much more grain / satin in the finish. My conclusion: that with different lots of dials, and perhaps with different dial producers, the quality and detail had some significant variation. I doubt that this was an attempt at "style" -- like a kid going from a fine-point pen to a crayon, to do a different style of drawing -- but I imagine that this was just a fact of life, in the production of these dials / watches.

For everyone's enjoyment, here are a couple of photos from our very best studio photographer, Bruce Mackie, showing a blue Montreal dial . . . his original image was over 5,500 pixels wide. I have cropped the "Heuer" from his original image (but not done any re-sizing) and also show an image of the entire watch, re-sized to 1,200 pixels (which may result in distortion).

Let me know what you think of these, and use the link below to see more of Bruces awesome photos.
Jeff

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