Very interesting Mark. I have been wondering for a while if we may see any earlier serial numbered Monacos turn up than Andys 157189 example.

If your listening out there and have a 157001 serial Monaco with a grey dial, blue lume with square steel hands and the magic words "Chronomatic" on please drop us a line!!

Cheers

Rich

From what we see in the wild, it's clear that Heuer had worked with
: their case manufacturers to allocate specific ranges to each of
: the Chronomatic watches. They don't run together at all, there
: is clear and distinct separation between Autavia (141xxx),
: Carrera (147xxx) and Monaco (157xxx).

: So much separation in fact that when we sequence by serial number
: we see the models running in specific ranges for some time, so
: Heuer was obviously allocating a wide space for each of these
: watches. Other contemporary watches like the late Camaros and
: second and third economy watches have higher serials, so it's no
: stretch to assume that Heuer had been ring-fencing these blocks
: of serials for some time ahead of the launch of the Chronomatic
: watches. It also means we get some dating anomalies for a whole
: chunk of serials between those lowest s/n Autavias right up into
: the mid-160xxxs.

: Given that it appears to have been planned for some time, I see no
: reason why a decently sized block of serials wouldn't have been
: allocated for the initial run of Autavias. I have no problems
: with a 1413xx watch being from that run. Heuer was taking a bit
: of a punt on Monaco sales and later evidence seems to show that
: they overestimated volumes on that watch, but they would have
: had a much firmer idea of how many Autavias they would be likely
: to sell, with 6+ years of sales figures to go on. The 1415xx is
: undoubtedly an outlier but we have seen on plenty of other
: occasions that Heuer were not afraid to mix and match until
: parts supplies were exhausted.

: We have seen xxx1xx watches in both the Autavia and Monaco
: Chronomatics and I have seen nothing to suggest that the xxx000
: serials in their respective ranges weren't allocated to watches.
: As we haven't seen any surface though, I wonder whether a lot of
: these were for prototypes and perhaps even while they were still
: finalising case design while the final dimensions of the
: (modular) movement were still being ironed out too. It makes a
: lot of sense to me, but I'm only speculating. Oddly enough, the
: few Carrera Chronomatics we have seen have been higher in its
: 147xxx serial range, so something different seems to be going on
: with that model. I'm at a bit of a loss to understand why, I see
: no obvious reason why there are so few Carreras compared to the
: other two - Heuer were aware of the volume of manual Carreras
: they had sold compared to Autavias, but that isn't reflected in
: the number of Carreras we see. The late first generation
: Carreras were also still selling strongly at this point, but
: that doesn't seem to be a good reason to throttle supply of
: Chronomatics. My best guess would be that, with the Cal 11
: partners struggling to ramp up supply of ebauches quickly enough
: to meet demand, Heuer allocated most of the movements to the
: more expensive watches. There was hardly a night and day
: difference between the Carrera and Autavia price though, and
: margins on the Monaco were probably squeezed a bit as they were
: more costly to assemble, though they did have novelty value to
: help them along too. If it was only the movements, we might
: expect to see more spare Carrera Chronomatic dials floating
: about too, but they seem no less rare than the assembled
: watches. One of the enduring mysteries of Heuer collecting then.

: So quite a long post to say I don't see a problem with Rich's and
: TH museum's Autavias having 1413xx serials!