Reading much about high auction prices, which make our collectors life quite hard, I want to bring it back to the beginning.
When it is all about looking and finding unique Heuer watches, old and with a special history.

When I stumbled over my last pick, I was thrilled at once. It is/has been an 1. Gen. Yacht Timer, the mother of all this beautiful Skippers.
BTW: I had the fortune to held two of the most beautiful Skippers ever seen in my hand thanks to Gerald, who has a really breathtaking Heuer collection here in Germany.
He just came over last night an showed me some great watches. I´m really impressed and could "only" add my early Autavia 3646 and the chronomatic badge.

But back to my "new" Yacht Timer...
Due to Jeff´s excellent writing about the 25. years of Yacht Timer history at the OTD blog, I just realized it was an historic piece I had to preserve.

I got it from a professional diver who found it some weeks ago at the bottom of a lake in Austria. Must have layed there for years or even decades.
Heavy damaged, but there was no water inside (!). Unfortunately the humidity has made "a good job" too.

The serial number 35437, so it is one of the really early examples.

I brought it to my watchmaker asap, but there is no way to rescue the movement & dial.
But Heuer logo is still visible, was signed from Türler too.

So it will stay as is, like a "memento mori", that reminds that everthing comes to an end.

Or maybe I should drop it at Heuer in Lexington Avenue being next time in NY.
That is at least what Heuer tells on the well preserved badge I found inside!

Don´t know if its readable due to small size of the pics, but there is written:

REPAIR SERVICE
When out of order send this timepiece to HEUER TIMER Corp, 441 Lexington Avenue, New York 12