Rich:

I have taken the liberty of copying and pasting your very interesting blog posting, below. Here is the link to your posting -- http://www.heuermonaco.co.uk/#/blog/4535761042

Your posting shows us one fake watch; perhaps more importantly it shows us the methodology of inspecting any vintage chronograph.

So will you report this to the auctioneer, and see whether they will remove the thing?

Well done!!

Jeff

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We have had another period where there seem to be more redial/fake Monacos in circulation than original dials!

Not surprising I guess, when we know this already rare watch had to contend with the dreaded melting seal which deposited a dark rubbery mess onto the dial edges, which then ate away at the dial. I’m not at all convinced this watch was ever water resistant either, the unusual case and seal design do not lend itself to this, I wonder how many were returned in the 70s due to this, before owners decided to make it a dry watch only! Lastly the dial also degraded on some variants via the lume dots, although this seems to have been on the metallic dial variants only.

So this brings us to the PVD in question which is coming up for sale via auction. Is it a bone fide 74033N Monaco? Well in short no...We have seen these re-dials before but there are plenty of tell tale signs as to why they are not genuine Heuer dials.

Here is the link to the auction - http://www.artcurial.com/en/asp/fullCatalogue.asp?salelot=1822+++++142+&refno=10309037

1. The biggest "tell" on a Vintage Heuer Monaco is the script. The Heuer and Monaco lettering on this PVD 74033 should have seriph flourishes, this does not.

2. The classic case of the open 4s. 4s on all the original authentic dials should be closed and not open like this one.

3. Interestingly the original PVD Monaco sub registers should not have numbers aligned flat (like all the other Monacos) but the centre 2 numbers on each sub register should be proud of the numbers on the left and right and in this one they are not. I guess whoever painted these dials, looked to a standard Monaco for inspiration when copying..?

4. The date window on an original PVD variant should have a black date window and not the red one this re-dial has.

5. Last but not least the hands on this PVD are not correct. The hour and minute hand are correct BUT the sub register hands and the chronograph second hand should all be a vibrant almost luminous orange, perhaps these hands are what the watchmaker had left in his box..?

Some of these issues may appear subtle individually but when you see the finished article its easy to spot that it just doesn’t look quite right. Always best therefore to buy from a trusted source or if in doubt feel free to drop me a line about any Monacos you are unsure of, before committing substantial funds to something that is not authentic.

For more information on Monaco authenticity check here -- http://www.heuermonaco.co.uk/#/monaco-authenticity/4538756513 or contact me at crosthwaite@hotmail.com