And an interesting choice for first Heuer. 1553 Carreras are probably a little bit underappreciated - we certainly don't talk about them all that much, which may be why Wynonie wasn't immediately with the model in his reply. That said, the watch in question isn't going to spark much recognition in Heuer collectors at all, I'm afraid.

That one has a number of issues that leads me to believe it's put together. Let's go through them:

- Tachy scale. Firstly, with only one known exception off the top of my head (the late model 110.253 B), the tachy scale of a second gen Carrera contrasts with the dial, rather than being black on black as here. Secondly, although the paint is not identical between the parts, I would expect a level of aging on the dial to be in line with the scale but they are vastly different here. So I don't think the two parts have always belonged together.

- As Wynonie said, the pushers are not correct for the model, though these sometimes do get changed. I think some watches go though a phase of just being an old watch before they become a vintage collectable and owners at that point are occasionally not as hot on originality as a collector may be.

- Hands. Well, the good news is that they are Carrera hands, but just like the tachy scale we have a colour mismatch here - the black-edged hands should be paired with a silver dial.

-Ah, the dial... Well, the dials we know of for the 1553 are quite distinctive:

The Carrera "bar" is something of a signature for the model and is present on all of the genuine examples I've seen. And those two colourways (blue and silver) are equally the only ones we can validate. We have seen a black one floated around a couple of times:

http://www.chronocentric.com/forums/heuer/index.cgi?page=1;md=read;id=37411
http://www.chronocentric.com/forums/heuer/index.cgi?page=1;md=read;id=36739
http://www.chronocentric.com/forums/heuer/index.cgi?page=1;md=read;id=36686

but even that one still had the bar, plus a number of issues with its execution: http://www.chronocentric.com/forums/heuer/index.cgi?page=1;md=read;id=36695

I have never seen one without the bar, but I do know that Heuer did produce some Call 15 watches off brand, and some of those do indeed have black dials. This Bulova "Autavia" springs to mind:

but there are other, more off-brand, examples too. The Heuer examples were marked "Swiss" above the date window rather than the "Swiss Made" of the watch in question, and not marked for tritium. So I suspect this one started life as something else and the dial has been refinished to make it a Heuer Carrera.

We can date them to an extent from the serial number, but only by comparison with other serials and it's not all that scientific - the off-brand ones usually take from the same case batches as Heuer-marked watches though, so it doesn't always help as much as it could.

All in all, I'd steer clear of this one. You'd need quite a few parts to put it right. But stick with the hunt for a 1553, there are some good ones out there - I don't wear mine as often as I could, but whenever there is a post like this, I break one out for the day - blue one today I think :)