I've been doing some research on the Orange dial 844 Jumbo divers and am aware that there appears to be some conflict about whether the Made In France professionel dials are correct.

I noticed this one sold by Antiquorum last year ;


https://catalog.antiquorum.swiss/en/lots/heuer-professionnel-lot-335-61

There was one very similar on E-bay recently with Mercedes-style hands, couldn't quite make the serial out but it looked like 10***, had a non-signed FE movement.
Same Brevet 503.305 MRR SA case back markings as the Antiquorum one.

There's another on Chrono24, but this has a Swiss professional dial.
https://www.chrono24.co.uk/heuer/monin-844-2--id25060568.htm

I've seen so many different examples of the Black dials when I've been trying to compare movements and serials that my head is battered !

Thanks in advance for thoughts and opinions.

 

Hope someone can help you, since TAG couldn't even get the date of the Carrera 40th anniversary right I have little faith in definitive answers.

 

As I understand it (I'm quite far from being any sort of expert), the consensus is that: at that point in time Heuer were trying anything and were basically in chaos, pushing out any combo of parts that they could throw together.

I daresay anyone working at Heuer at the time would say it wasn't that bad, but that's the gist, as I understand it.

 

It's my opinion (and the same of some others who are considered very well-versed in the Heuer divers) that the MiF orange dial divers were NEVER manufactured in a Heuer factory. As you rightly point out, there are a number of variations with hands etc and there is little/no consistency. There is also a believable story that the dials were Heuer-produced but never put into production. The batch of these dials were obtained/held by a guy in Europe and eventually found their way into the market.

Just using the example in the photo-the bezel doesn't appear original and those hands sure aren't.

The rule of thumb I swear by-along with the MiF dial not being fitted to a watch, there was NEVER an orange dial '844' made. The caseback should only ever read 980.005-end of.
Steve

 

For me I’ve always thought it was a possibility they were made by Heuer, although nothing to support that, and more to suggest they weren’t. The dials in my eyes 100% correct, as they are just far too good in every detail to be fakes.

I have one of these and don’t take it as an original but see it as a “could have been”, as an orange 844 not a big step to the 980.005. Heuer were a shambles in record keeping back then and plenty of other watches that were thought to be fake or Frankens have later been shown to be “possibly” factory produced.
Very possible the dials we’re made but then they transitioned to the 1000 series and those variations before production started of the Orange 844.

The early 844’s have quite a mixture of hands so I’ve never thought too much about that.

 

It certainly is a minefield, especially when you can look at the Catalogue archives on here and see the 844/980 range with a mix of hands in both the 1979 and 1981 booklets.
Unfortunately the photos are too pixelated too be able to see if the dials are French or Swiss.

 

In some of the catalogue the watches were just illustrations and an indication of kind of what you’d get. The late 70’s and early 80’s was a minefield especially relating to the watches of French origins.

 

Any thoughts on this one? Looks like it has a 12xxx serial.

 

A standard put-together on my opinion. The serial is almost irrelevant but the caseback doesn't even follow a Heuer design-in particular the text on the angled edge is too close to the flat circle. I suspect it came from a generic brand 844, as most of them do.

 

Thanks for that. Any idea of the value considering these things? Also, assuming it runs well.

 

Well, to me, it's a generic 844 case/movement and MiF dial. Sum of it's parts is really around £500-750. But some would likely pay more for what it is in the HOPE that it may be authentic-so you would be over £1k. (sorry, all in GBP as I'm in UK!)

ps 'MiF' is what we call these random orange Made in France dials.

 

Well, here comes the new owner of the franken 844 orange listed above. Just won the auction. Great eyes on the newly etched engravings (cuts are too shallow and edged up to close on the flat surface of the caseback). Also, given the different lume colors on hands and dial, I assume its been serviced with third-party compatible parts. Yet, Heuer did not have an in-house capability to produce their own parts back then, so I assume it still maintains parts of its authenticity. Who knows whether its a factory detail or not since there is no sets of reference to confirm? Glad I have several authentic parts in my stock to rebuild this junky into ONE piece.

 

Congrats-at least you went into it with your eyes open and had an idea what you were bidding on! Hopefully we can see some pics once you've done something with it.