Hello Jonny,

Lanny is right, I'm certain and afraid to say ....
Several things struck me immediately, appearing "wrong, wrong, wrong!"....
And I am quite surprised (and disappointed) that at seems there was no comment about this from TAG when they sent the watch in return to you. :-/
Sorry to say.... but this definitely looks like ...troubles and worries.

Better luck next time... and always be careful !

Cheers,
Olaf

: Bit of a saga this one chaps and it's been yonks since I last
: posted (got married, had a baby, moved house etc), so apologies
: !

: I bought this Siffert
:

: With my meagre inheritance when my Dad died in 2006. It was in a
: curios shop in Cape Town and had the wrong crystal, recoloured
: hands (red !) wrong bezel and the case was a bit
: "worn".

: The seller knew it was rare and I wasn't massively up on Heuers at
: the time (still know 1% of what Jeff knows !) but it came with
: the GF rice grain bracelet and I fell in love. He wouldn't move
: on the £1,200 price, so I bought it and have never regretted it
: since.

: The case was refinished to what I would describe as 99% perfect!
: with immaculate polished edges and proper sunburst finish. One
: of those grit your teeth and pay up jobbies ! Heuer replaced the
: bezel and insert with NOS correct ones as well as a NOS crystal
: and Abel very kindly did some work on the hands including
: fitting correct register hands and repainting the second hand.

: The watch was pretty much now original Heuer, although improved
: with Heuer parts to make it non full original condition if you
: get my drift.

: The only thing letting it down was the dial, which although it had
: a nice yellowed patina, was letting everything else down. I
: found the dial you see on the pic on the internet and had the
: original one replaced and popped in a brown envelope for safe
: keeping. The new dial was a sympathetic temporary replacement
: with the intention of one day getting the original dial looked
: at by an expert to see what could be done.

: See the bit about the house move ?

: Guess who now can't find the original dial ?!

: To say I'm gutted is an understatement, I keep thinking it will
: turn up somewhere, but as the months turn into years I'm
: beginning to think it may not.

: I'm aware that the replacement dial is missing lume and the metal
: frame around the date box is missing, so the question is - can I
: get these issues sorted and is it worth doing ? I'm certainly
: not looking to pass the watch off as original and will probably
: never sell it as it's my inheritance, but with it the way it is
: it's feeling as though it's missing something.

: It's just arrived back from a full service at Heuer and has new
: pushers, crystal, crown and pushers, so will be in fine fettle
: and ready for some serious airtime.

: I must get round to removing the plastic protector on the crystal,
: so if you're thinking the pic is a little less than sharp that's
: the reason !

: All comments gratefully received and if anyone fancies taking on a
: re lume job let me know.

: Cheers

: Jonny