Carlos wrote: The history of the Breitling brand is very interesting, and a good example of how ownership of trade mark rights carries more weight in the minds of consumers than physical components and tooling.
One thing I’ve become much more aware of over the last few months of reading is the importance of the Bankruptcy of Breitling during the 1978-1980 period. Breitling was very much de rigueur – especially in Europe - up until about the mid seventies when the quartz re(de)volution kicked in. By 1980, the brand which was owned by the Breitling family was finished, but Ernest Schneider purchased the intellectual property required to re-launch the brand, whilst a couple of smaller companies, Sinn and Ollech & Wajs, purchased remaining stock and tooling. Some might argue that the watches produced by those smaller companies from the existing stock and using the same tooling are closer to “real” Breitlings than watches subsequently produced by the Schneider owned corporate entity.
Roff - fair enough for a very brief period of time while assembled watches / parts were used up but after that it was only the design and Sinn / O&W sourced / produced parts.
The new Navitimer and Chronomat range launched by the Schneider owned Breitling took the brand into new territory by the 90s when mechanical watches became popular again, and started to penetrate the US and Asian markets. During that time, the Schneider owned Breitling progressively improved the overall quality and consistency of the watches produced – as have most Swiss watch companies.
Over the last decade, and especially with the introduction of the Bentley line, the brand has been progressively climbing the prestige ladder.
Roff - or at least trying to. I think there is a perceived step up in quality with Bentley, but there is also a perceived move down market with the more affordable Aeromarine range which is getting significant investment. There has been little tangible movement to move upmarket toward the likes of Zenith, IWC, Panerai, etc, at least until the B01.
Of course, back in the final days of the brand’s previous apex of popularity in the late sixties/early seventies, Breitlings were not cheap, and even all gold models were available – but prior to the Schneider era, Breitlings were seen more as high end tool watches than luxury timepieces.
Roff - Don't agree with that at all. Solid gold watches were available from Breitling throughout their history, not just in the 60s / 70s, in fact significantly fewer then than in the 40s. Also, while watches like the Chronomat and Navitimer were clearly tool watches, Breitling has always had a number of dress watches - the huge selection of ladies watches availbale in the 30s and 40s is evidence enough of that. Far more dress models then than now.
Indeed, some models still fit into that category – although at the higher end of the price spectrum.
It will be interesting to see where the brand goes from here – hopefully towards more fully “in-house” movements without excessive pricing. On the first point, the pre-Schneider Breitling company was certainly involved with the development of the world’s first automatic chronograph, and for a number of years the modern company has in fact been producing many of the generic components itself. On the second point, Breitling sometimes gets it wrong. For example, I think it’s a commonly held view that the Flying B’s – questionable design aesthetics aside – have always been over priced.
I actually like the fact that some ‘non-watch’ people have never heard of the brand – but with what seems to be an ever increasing advertising budget at Breitling, those days are probably numbered!
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) I went for it and will never look back.
which could take a while 