Watchlords

Introduction

Lately there has been much discussion surrounding what constitutes an authentic Heuer Bundeswehr-spec chronograph. This is an effort to document the many dial variations and gather, in a single place, enough information to make an informed assessment of this highly regarded timepiece.

To start, I solicited members of the Military Watch Resource (MWR) to provide scans of their Heuer Bundeswehr chronographs. Then I ran a Google search for "heuer bundeswehr chron*" to locate any more examples on the web on personal homepages or dealer websites. All told, over 30 examples were found. Please note that this project only addresses the dial variations at this time. There is yet another set of questions around the various markings found on the case and caseback.


if you'd like a self-contained version of this project, click here to download this page in PDF format.


Findings

There are 5 general configuations of Heuer-branded dials:
•the "classic 3H/T" - a red 3H-symbol appears just below the dial center, and a tiny "T" appears just above "6".
•the "3H-only" - a red 3H-symbol appears just below the center.
•the "T-only" - a tiny "T" appears just above "6".
•the "clean" - no markings beyond the "Heuer" logo.
•the "sternzeit" - STERNZEIT REGULIERT markings just below the dial center.

There are 2 general configurations of Sinn-branded dials:
•the "3H-only" - a red 3H-symbol appears just below the center.
•the "clean" - no markings beyond the "Heuer" logo.
To add to the confusion...there are 4 variations of the "3H" symbol: •the "standard" 3H.
•the "big-letter" 3H - circle is same size as standard, but the letters are larger and fill the circle more completely.
•the "small-letter" 3H - circle is same size as standard, but the letters are smaller and there is a small dot in the center.
•the "small-circle" 3H - the circle is noticeably smaller.
It doesn't stop there...there are 3 variations of the manufacturer logo: •the "standard" Heuer logo - fits inside :58 and :02.
•the "big" Heuer logo - fits even with :58 and :02.
•the Sinn logo.
Finally...there are 2 variations of the font used for the hour-markers: •the "standard" font - most noticeable because none of the numbers are cut-off.
•the "cut-off" font - the 10:00, 8:00, and 2:00 are cut-off by the subdials.

Dial Comparison

Here are cropped images of each unique style, allowing you to easily scan the various styles to find one that interests you. In addition, each image has been (as much as feasible) given the same relative dimensions to make meaningful comparisons relatively easy. Click on a style that interests you to learn more specifics.