Hello,

Related to the topic of Kyle from yesterday.

I just did a quick search in my photo archives and already found three First execution Autavia's with also such a red central seconds hand.

At first I obviously also thought these were non original/repainted. The whites only seem to be "more pointy" or sharp due to the fact of the white paint. The red ones seem to have softer/rounded edges, but that's only visual appearance, they are in fact identical shape.

The ones I found in my archives were all in early serial number range. About the 2 register reference 3646, one had 488xx serial, the other 489xx. The three register had a 494xx serial number.

A few of my other observations with these watches: they all had the original early domed crown, early small pushers and also important the "thin lume insert" dauphine hands as they were advertised in an early Heuer brochure.

For me these "thin lume insert" dauphine hands are certainly very early and are for sure earlier then the "wide lume" dauphine hands. I even tend to believe that these "thin lume insert" dauphine hands are actually first execution, so earlier then the famous full lume dauphines. If we look at the Heuer watches produced before the first execution Autavia's were produced, we see these "thin lume insert" dauphine hands on a variety of other Heuer chronographs already. It is my belief that the full lume dauphines were introduced on the 1st execution Autavia's only after they were in production for some time with the "thin lume insert" dauphines. And then after some time in production Heuer might have experienced some issues/troubles with the full lume dauphine hands, they started to use the "wide lume" dauphine hands.

Ofcourse, please note, these thoughts are only based on my personal experience and I do not pretend it to be the only truth.

Thanks,
abel.