Mark and Stewart,

Thank you both for all of the great information. I guess this sort of makes sense to me now. I had noticed that the "5013" number on my watch was the same as the Montreal but it is also obvious that as the case slopes away from the crystal on the Montreal it is convex and on my watch it is concave like the Pasadena. Anyway, the watch is not in "mint" condition but it still has all of its original brushing and polishing....and I like it. I bought it from an old watchmaker who needed money to go on to the casinos. I bought this and a very early 321 speedy...looks like a '61, from the same guy. When the speedy gets back from the watchmaker I will try to take some pix.

You know I used to tell people that if God had wanted us to wear wrist watches, why did he give us pockets? ...but now I am beginning to realize that he gave us the wrists too...so...

Happy New Year to you and thanks again.

JohnCote
www.interstatetime.com

: Welcome to forum John, and nice watch.

: By most points of reference, Heuer made very little of anything
: when it came to the chronographs. They were something of a high
: profile but low volume addendum to a business that was largely
: concerned with making the stopwatches and timers.

: But this watch was indeed likely to have been one of the watches
: they didn't make very many of even in comparison to some of the
: others. In fact, it was something of a moot point what to even
: call it until Stewart inadvertently gave me some info I needed
: to solve the riddle of its reference:
:
: With regards to the 750.501-3...
: Like I say, it isn't in any OTD catalogues, but it is listed in the
: OTD MOAT.
: When I first saw pictures of them, I presumed they were Black PVD
: Pasadenas that had the PVD sanded/polished off. (This is still
: the case, you see many '750.501' marked Heuers that are
: stainless steel - these have had the PVD removed, probably
: because they looked tatty). But, I've seen sufficient
: 750.501-3's for sale that are in good/mint condition, that are,
: or appear to be factory stainless steel. Coupled with the info
: in the OTD MOAT, it's solid evidence.

: With this paragraph Stewart, you've solved the riddle whether
: you know it or not!

: It was Heuer's model code schema putting them into a bit of a
: fix. The terminal numeral of the numeric code usually denotes
: material, in these six digit codes as well as the four digit
: ones, with some exceptions like the divers. 3 is most common,
: and denotes steel, 5 is gold plate, 8 is solid gold and 1
: denotes a PVD finish.

: In calling the PVD 750.501 a Pasadena and the steel 750.503 a
: Montreal, a problem arose when they wanted to produce a steel
: Pasadena. Logically, that model would be a 750.503, but that
: number was already taken by the Montreal. Looks like the
: compromise was to append a -3 to denote a steel case to the
: existing 750.501 code for the Pasadena and differentiate it from
: the existing Montreal. Hence 750.501-3.

: Makes complete sense to me now.

: In fact, that thread makes a good place to start reading up on the
: watch and its siblings:
: http://www.chronocentric.com/forums/heuer/index.cgi?page=1;md=read;id=41052