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Re: 1163 vs 1163v, Viceroy history
In Response To: 1163 vs 1163v ()

Hi Brian,

we have studied these pretty extensively over the last two years, I will try to summarise the outcome briefly.

The 1163 was introduced 1969 as Chronomatic MH and T and was running out at least in Europe in 1976, last mention as end of series in a Dutch catalog 1976.
Jeff do you have any info how long the 1163 was available in the US ?

Our studies revealed that Heuer made changes to the cases (size and design of pusher integration), hands (steel, steel with inserts, blue and red tipped) and dials (steel index, indexes with inlays, 3,6,9 vs 1 to 12 hour subdials) every year, hence together with the serial numbers it helps to determine pretty closely the year of manufacture.

When Heuer decided to participate in the Viceroy promotion (would be a no go today to get linked to a cigarette brand, times have changed..) a new model was quickly developed by creating the 1163 V, which was developed out of the 1163 MH just by changing the bezel from minutes and hours to the obviously more race linked tachy bezel borrowed from the 1163 T which we call Siffert today.

During the Viceroy cigarette campaign Heuer offered the new model for a hefty discount, if I remember correctly it was 88 $ versus 276 $ for the standard MH or T. Therefore the MH (Derek Bell) model, which just differed in bezel must have been pretty unsellable in the US, which explains that most of the new old stock MHs we have seen recently came from the US.
After purchase of a carton of Viceroys people could send a coupon to collect the discounted Autavia Viceroy, which took the position in the portfolio until the late seventies as an economy model.

As you can imagine Heuer was suddenly confronted with a heftly pull from the US market and had to react quickly to fullfill demand and brought in beside Piquerez a new case supplier Schmitz.
This would have been around mid 71 to 72.

Now back to your questions, when you look at the 1163 vs the 1163 V you see that the pusher housings are different, further the typo/ printing on the tachymeter bezel is slightly different and the case parameters differ a few millimeters. Backcases had a different design. However the dials have the same measurement as have the hands.

Also the movement was changed from Caliber 11 to Caliber 12 and Jeff wrote a great piece about these changes.

After 1972 Heuer marked all 1163 cases with a V because this was the volume model, therefore we find later Sifferts and Bells showing the 1163 V, obviously there was a grey period when older 1163 signed cases were used up as we have learned studiing new old stock watches.

Regarding the value I don't think it makes a great difference some people like the older signed cases however it is more important to look at the condition.

I hope this answers your questions...

Cheers

Arno

www.heuerchronographs.com

: I picked up a couple heuers 1163 from a guy in the midwest. There
: is a 1163 and a 1163V that have the same exact dial. The
: pictures that i have take show the 1163v on the left and is much
: smaller and has the cal. 11 movement. The right watch is the
: 1163 and has a cal. 12 movement and its larger.
: I have been able to find many examples of the 1163v model but i
: have not been able to locate any 1163. Is the 1163 considered
: more valuable? Are the dials the same diameter? Thanks for your
: time. Brian
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Messages In This Thread

1163 vs 1163v
Re: 1163 vs 1163v, Viceroy history
Re: 1163 vs 1163v, Viceroy history
Re: 1163 vs 1163v, Viceroy history
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