Heuer Autavia Transitional

Heuer

2446 M

Transtional

circa 1966

83XXX

steel, screw-back, 19mm. straight fat lugs, case back outer signed Heuer Autavia with usual outer concentric engraving, the reverse signed HEUER LEONIDAS SA stainless steel.

Thick early-style grey/gunmetal coloured minute bezel

Original finish signed AUTAVIA HEUER Black dial with 3 white subsidiaries, with lume rectangles applied to the steel hour markers

Plain steel matchstick hands with original lume inserts

Valjoux 72, manual wind, signed Heuer – Leonidas SA Swiss

Generic steel bracelet – or brown leather

Notes The Transitional Heuer Autavia is one of the rarest and most enigmatic watches Heuer made. The name Transitional gives it away; it was the very short-lived transition between the 2nd exec 2446 and the 3rd exec - now commonly termed ‘the Rindt'. The Transitional was made in 1965 and it is thought there are only as few as 50 surviving pieces in the world today. Whilst the dial of the Transitional is the same as the later 2446 3rd exec (Rindt), the case lugs are straight and slightly fat. In addition the Transitional bezel, which can be either hour or minute, uses the early wide version typically used on the 1st and 2nd exec 2446 models. Another interesting feature is that very often the Transitional bezel is often seen faded to a gunmetal colour – as in the example here - it seems to lend the watch a beautiful faded vintage-look. The Heuer Transitional 2446 fits into the ‘super-rare' category of early Heuers, indeed it's only been in the last 5 years has their existence been discovered. Their value is extremely difficult to gauge, but perhaps a good comparison would be to its successor the Rindt, of which Heuer made as many as 6000 examples – compared to the Transitional of which Heuer may have made as few as 500.