Hello folks,
Gentlemen,

Bullitt, you have been a little faster than me today.
I also had this on my mind, since breakfast, and it was really bothering me. I had this urgent need to add my 2 cents and could not refuse to write this time; to let Lanny know I fully agree with him.
And you, Bullitt, said exactly what I wanted to state right away:
This is NOT a Heuer Prototype.
Period.
And yes, but that is not of importance at all, I don't like it either.

I find it quite surprising that someone who could/should be considered an expert among us Heuer-lovers actually wants to tell us he's found a prototype ... and then shows ... THIS (!?) .
Now if it had been someone new, telling us he's got no idea about watches, and Heuer in particular, OK ...we would have understood and helped point out where and why he is wrong.
But this well-known seller, who, btw, miraculously keeps finding these "prototypes" and other wonderful occasions - often in NOS boxes and with papers etc. - can not seriously have believed to have found a Heuer-prototype, IMO.

I shouldn't dare to continue my thoughts completely .... but I do have a certain feeling here .... of a bad smell I notice sensitively.

What upsets me so much in this case is, that I just don't like when people call or name things so WRONG. (And I'm not even talking about maybe trying to fool people ... I just mean and prefer naming things correctly and properly.)
If it had been a prototype from Heuer, it should have actually BEEN from Heuer - and, as Lanny already said, this watch certainly never left the Heuer factory this way.
It may have Heuer parts - no doubt - and some resemblance to different models, as the Carrera most obviously, but on the other hand it is so easily recognizable as a FRANKEN that I just can't stand it hearing it would be prototype.
It's just a watch somebody put together - no matter if in a school, or at home on a workbench or his dinner table. As Shaun already said .... where I agreed too.

And a prototype, IMO, is a first production of something - may it be a car, a plane, a train, another kind of machine, a gun, a cellphone, or a watch - as a single piece, showing either the look of a planned series to follow, or staying a single "picture" of what might be in the (company's) future. And I didn't need Wikipedia or whatever for this.

Put in other, more simple words, that I sometimes prefer in order to express myself in a picture easier to imagine .... and I ask the ladies and the more sensitive men among us to forgive me .....
If I'd be on a walk in the forest, with my dogs, and I'd see my brown lab has just left something behind, in the grass or leaves, a few meters well aside from the path, looking shiny and new .... I'd not consider this a prototype, but just a unique piece.

Best regards,
Cheers,
Saluti,

Olaf

: ...it's not an Heuer and none can say where this dial was printed.

: What's this?

: 1) a rare piece (NOT A PROTOTYPE!) for collectors?
: 2) spare parts?
: 3) a curious piece fo a Carrera collector?
: 4) trash?

: Really don't know.
: I don't like it, it's sure. I can't find in it the
: "Heuer" touch... I can belive it was put together in a
: school. And, IHMO, it remains a franken...