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Re: Heuer '1550' Bundeswehr Chrono

I dont claim to know all about these Bund's but have done some research in the past.

Good points -
Your watch has a familiar font & style engraving on the backcase, consistant with other known original items, i feel its original.
There were non-issued watches out there that people have tried to falsely engrave at a later date to add value & a false history.

Your case lug cutouts have the stepped recesses when viewed from the back - thats correct too ! This is so the pusher caps dont catch the case when depressed. There have been examples of questionable cases ( either 3rd party produced OR Sinn service cases ) that dont have this extra step on the case.

All components seem to be correct for what would have been one of the later issued versions of this model - the small T is a reference to tritium , the type of lume used in the later variants of these Bunds.

Bad point -
The condition of the watch is very good. It may seem odd to mark that down as a negative but keep in mind these were working tool watches. They suffered years of duty at the hands of servicemen & in all likelyhood had hard lives. There is a reasonable expectation that they would certainly have marks, dings & scratches from their time at work.
Heuer maintained the watches & parts supply for some years up into the 70's and then in the 80's Sinn took over & sold the decommissioned watches. Sinn had a fresh supply of parts & there are arguements both supporting & denying that the parts were recreated for Sinn as they refurbished & sold off the ex-military stock.
Many of the mil watch collectors will set priority upon a watch that seems to have evenly aged components such as bezels, dial & hand lumes.

If you head over to MWR http://www.mwrforum.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?2-Main-Forum you will see the point has been raised, debated & not settled on a number of occaisions.
Any further info you may require on your example you are probably best off to ask over on MWR as some of their experts are fanatical about this model watch.

Finally , dont be shocked if your example comes up with a Valj.23 marked movement baseplate. There were definately variants produced as such in the earlier execution variants. This would not mean your example would be a franken as when the military maintained their own watches they placed any functioning movement back into any available case - thus serving up a mix of movements to dials & serial numbers.

Good luck - Darren

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