1970 Heuer Autavia 1163MH

After the 'warm-up' of the little Omega Seamaster I was ready to go for my first real vintage piece!

Due to Jeff Stein's excellent resource OnTheDash, there was a lot of information on vintage Heuers available - I decided I wanted an early Heuer Autavia 1163 with the cal.11, the world's first automatic chronograph movement.

I found this one in Nov 2011 - an early (pre-Viceroy) Heuer Autavia 1163MH from Italy, dating by serial number to 1970.

You can still see the original ad here (thank you Alberto!), and more information on the early automatic Autavias here, and a detailed write-up on their serial numbers here.

In the flesh, it is an impressively handsome watch - I've come across my fair share of watches since first encountering this 1163MH, but my initial impression still remains - it is almost perfectly proportioned - just the right size to look aggressive and sporty without being oversized, the black dial with the contrasting silver subdials wonderfully balanced by the red chrono sweep hand, all enclosed within the elegant MH bezel, and everything brought together by the timeless and classy original Gay Freres 'beads of rice' bracelet.

This was not my first vintage acquisition - that honour will always belong to the little Omega Seamaster 166.022 (that I eventually sold) - but this was the first one I knew was a definite keeper.

1970 Heuer Chronosport catalog, courtesy of OnTheDash

Omega Seamaster Cosmic 166.022 - my first birth year watch

Perhaps inspired by Kaister's birth in 2010, in these past couple of years, I've been increasingly interested in things from my own birth year, 1969.

It started with trying to look for a birth year acoustic guitar, but these are hard to come by, and when they do, they're either in terrible condition, or are hideously expensive, or both.

Thus my focus gradually shifted to birth year watches - these were easier - mechanical watches tend to last longer than wooden guitars, and they also tend to be produced in greater numbers.

But my knowledge of vintage watches was literally nil - heck, I didn't even know the difference between automatic and manual winding, so I had to start from scratch.

The internet was the obvious place to begin, and Ebay has always been a long-time friend.

From there, searching for 1969 wristwatches led me to a bunch of Rolexes and Omegas. Rolex I couldn't afford, but the prices of these old Omegas seemed reasonable. The Speedmaster 'moon watch' was an obvious choice, but there were many many variants, and unravelling them all seemed very complicated and daunting.

Then I spotted a little Seamaster Cosmic. This was of course a Seamaster from a pre-James Bond era, but it was unusually shaped, had a pretty dial seemingly 'different' from the others (more on that later), and in rather good condition.

Plus it's serial number suggested a 1969 production. It's impossible to be totally accurate with these serial numbers, but a search of this model ST166.022 on the Omega website suggested a production period spanning 1967-1970, which tallies.

The seller actually took the trouble to post up loads of high quality pictures, pretty good by Ebay standards, and was friendly and responsive to my questions. So after a bit of back and forth with the guy, I took the plunge and pulled the trigger...and within a week, the postman showed up at the door with my first vintage birth year watch!!! Woohoo!!!

Measuring 33.5 mm across, it was surprisingly small in the flesh (online photos of watches are often taken with a macro lens, so everything looks larger than life - Vintage Watch Collecting lesson #1), and the unusual dial in relatively good condition very probably meant it's a serviced or refinished dial (lesson #2), but hey, it's a pretty little thing, and it'll always have a little place in my heart as my first birth year watch from 1969....but was it to be my last?

Stay tuned.....