I've been sitting quietly on this one for some time now but i think its time to make a reveal to the forum, here is my 1969 Chronomatic Monaco.

It is another example of the 'paintless wonder' dial where the original blue paint has had a dramatic failure and left this mottled brass/brown finish. The truely stange feature of this paint failure is that all the feature print laid over the original blue finish has survived - the Heuer sheild, the words CHRONOMATIC and MONACO, the original blue lume dots, the white seconds marks and even the fine 1/5th seconds scale have all had the effect of sealing the blue finish underneath even though the blue all around it has faded away. My own theory is that the blue paint on this early run prototype Monaco was not finished with a coat of clear, allowing the original blue finish to deplete over time.

Other observations on this prototype watch are that the seconds chrono hand is not the same shade of red as the standard 1133 Monaco. Its a much softer 'burnt orange/red' type of colour. I noticed Jeff's paintless wonder has the same shade seconds hand. The polished steel hour/minute hands are a joy to look at in person, they seem to relate directly to the steel hour battons mounted on the dial on all automatic Monaco's at the 2,3,4,5,7,8,10 & 11 positions. The hands are filled with the same blue lume as the hour marker dots and are still beautifully finished, no cracks, gaps or chunks missing. It does make me wonder how the blue lume would have looked like when first completed back in '69.

The dial has not completely given up all signs of its blue past - on the left hand side a faint line of blue dial still exists between the 10 & 8 battons and in the bottom corner. The right hand side has a large patch in the lower corner and to a lesser extent a small patch by the 2 o'clock batton. The dial retains its ability to change shades depending on the angle you view it. As i've heard the owners of transitional Monaco's say it can be a very moody dial to try and take decent photo's of.

Its difficult to say if this rare watch has suffered the further indignity of gasket failure at some point of its life but its hard to use this theory to explain the paint loss on the edges as all the 1/5th seconds scale still exist where the dial finish has come away. To extend this same principle take note of the brassing effect present around the edges of the chrono registers. Really close inspection with a loupe does not show any peeling, flaking or remnants of dust from the origal blue finish so i'm afraid this is one is going to remain a mystery.

I've put the watch on a black corfam strap with an original Acierinox sun stamper buckle (just as it would have worn back in 1969).

The case has more than its share of battle scars so this rare piece of history is a watch that can be used without too great a fear that a single scratch will chip away significantly at the value of the watch. I've had the watch on my wrist constantly over the last week and it has a brought a big grin to my face each time i've rolled the wrist over to check the time ;-)

Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as i enjoy the watch - Darren