And one for the curious, a Carrera 110.253 F

[ddurham]

As some of you will know, the Fume dial was not introduced to the Carrera until the introduction of the barrel shaped case as the 110.573 F. It came as quite a surprise then when I found this up for sale (Hi Glenn!) - a Fume dial in the earlier second generation case shape.



At first I thought it might just be a franken combination of parts, but after some digging it became apparent that it's not the only one out there. To quote Mark Moss: "I'm now convinced that the [110.253] F was a factory production watch having seen more than enough examples to convince me of that. Sales of the barrels had not really taken off and the second gen remained strong, so a factory parts bin special was created to move the remaining dials".
The collector I bought it from had it on good authority that it originally belonged to a Heuer employee so it probably does have a bit of a story behind it.
The only part which doesn't seem to quite fit is the central chrono second hand, I don't recall seeing a similar one on a Heuer, but who knows what was in that parts bin...
Anyway, just thought I'd share, if anyone does have any more information about these brown specials I'd be very curious to find out more.

 

[paysdoufs]

That’s quite a fascinating find. And the dial of this one appears to be in beautiful condition

Did this parts bin special only use brown dials or also blue ones?

 

[ddurham]

Well the blue dial was introduced in the second gen case (110.253 B) as a catalogued production model, whereas the brown dial in this case never appeared in catalogues, which is what makes it a bit of a curiosity.

 

[paysdoufs]

You’re totally right:
http://www.onthedash.com/chronograph/carrera-110-253-blue/

And 4 years ago we did indeed have the discussion you are citing above and which was triggered by a champagne Côtes de Genève dial in a second gen. 110-253:
https://tagheuerforums.com/threads/1978-ish-carrera-110-253-chn.112638/