wills0_9 wrote:
Hi
Yes. The design of hands and bezel developed over time.
Hands became ‘closed ends’ probably to provide a more robust housing for the lume. They went from black and white with open ends late 60’s, to all white with open ends for a year or so, then white with closed ends and then some later with white and orange with closed ends. You do see orange and white with open ends on some early Chronomatic but not 1806 as far as I know.
Bezels developed to have silver edging, again probably because the edges of all black ones tended to wear and rub through to bare metal turning silver in any case!
Some of the very early dials even had chronomatic without the hyphen. You also see this on early catalogues, advertising and even in the imagery on Chronomatic watch boxes. I’ve heard this changed to hyphenated ‘chrono-matic’ following agreement with Heuer about the branding but not sure about that. Perhaps others with more knowledge would know if that’s fact or fiction!
The dates tended to be black for cal 11 and red for cal 12. I don’t think this is strictly adhered to as you do see a transition to reds.
These changes are not limited to 1806. Happened across other chrono-matic models.
All of the above is from my personal observations and research so open to debate and further discussion!
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Great thanks for the intersting info.