The Breitling Watch Source Forums

"Double Plane" logo would have to be later, I agree.
Good to see you here, Bill, & best regards,
Tom

I don't understand this part, Bill. How can a Venus 178 without Incabloc be an upgraded movement? To me, the lack of Incabloc on these handful of 824,k SN 806s strongly indicates earlier production than watches with caseback serials a mere 500-1k later that have the Incabloc, as Michael originally laid out.

Thoughts?
Best,
T.

Another explanation might be that as Breitling ramped up its line of 3-register chronographs in the early/mid 1950s, they wound up essentially buying the total output of Venus' 178 stock at a faster than anticipated pace than the producer had reckoned. This might explain a supply chain issue that forced both Breitling and Benrus to go to Valjoux 72 movements temporarily. Breitling, of course, returned to near-exclusive use of Venus 178 for many years after this brief Valjoux interlude, so perhaps Venus had expanded their production capabilities in the interim to respond to Breitling's needs but with very few 178s left over for their other customers?

Purely hypothetical on my part and just a thought...
Best,
T.

I didn't mean to imply that they made the two button in house. They designed the movement but I believe that they licensed the design for manufacture.

And just to be clear, Breitling did put in house movements in wristwatches because early wristwatches used smaller pocket watch movements.

+1, and sorry Michael, but you should know that!

Details for how to post pictures are here - viewtopic.php?f=5&t=453

If that doesn't work let me know and I'll work with you to post.

To Tom's question, I would also like to understand how a non shock proof movement is an upgrade.

Oh boy what did I cause here...

fascinating nevertheless~!

_________________
"I don't got the bright watch I got the right watch" -Jay Z

An intriguing discussion that I for one am enjoying. It's a nice change from 'is this real' (which I'm happy to respond to).

The bottom line is that we are largely dealing with speculation because there is so little official Breitling documentation. The only way that we will ever be able to advance the discussions and find any answers (if there are any definitive answers to be found) is when a group of people with a passion and some knowledge come together to debate and discuss.

For me, this is why we are here - it's a lot more fun than silly debates about whether a piece is a fake or extremely rare.

Has anyone else noticed the trademark documents for the Navitimer in Richter are dated 1955? A little late perhaps? BTW great discussion!!!

100 % agree Roff, nice


Offcourse I know that, the dial may be reprinted, but the case and the movement ist genuine.
But I have 2 more AVI from 1953 with the correct dial and Venus 178, but not gold and one without incablock- this may be not original, but the other with incablock 100 % original.






not agree, Breitling indeed produced a 16 line Montbrillant one buttom movement and used it in their first wristwatch. Tommorrow I will make some photos. Compare with Benno Richter page 25 right down or "THE BOOK" page 39. This is real the first Breitling wristwatch with original montbrillant 16´´ inhouse movement.

Me too , I dont understand this part, Bill.

here the Breitling inhouse calibre of the first wristwatch out of the "Georg Jacob" catalog from 1948 and the photo of this watch from "BREITLING THE BOOK". Photos of the real watch of my collection comes later.

+1

Thanks Tomvox for posting the Benrus movement. That is interesting.



I guess I should take my Dad's advice - when you're in a hole, stop digging -- but here goes,

The intial question being discussed here was, why did Breitling switch to the Valjoux 72 movement in 53/54 when prior and subsequently they used the Venus 178?

So if not totally exclusive , it certainly seems that Breitling were the predominant manufacturer using the Venus 178 throughout it's main production run. It's also fairly clear that they predominantly used Venus movements in all their chronographs during this period. So why would Breitling dump their main and trusted supplier of many years, whom I'm sure they must have had a strong working relationship with and use Venus's main competitor in their new flagship watch?



This is an interesting argument. I thought it might be fun to take the series numbers and run them through a spreadsheet and see what sort of production numbers we're talking about.

Could it be just a coincidence that there's a massive drop in production in 1952 and Breitling using the Valjoux movement in 53/54?

If the series numbers in Richter are accurate it's clear that something happened in 1952 that meant that Breitling were either forced to, or chose to, seriously reduce the amount of chronographs they produced.

You're argument might be supported by these figures. Given that production numbers were at a high in 50/51 maybe they did use up Venus's supply and had to find another source. However, Venus had been producing the 178 since the early Forties and I believe that it is modified from older movements like the 175

http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db. ... &Venus_178

so as Roff pointed out at the start you'd think that Venus as a mature company would be able to meet a ramp up of demand from one of it's major customers. Also the Valjoux 72 Navitimer is a rare beast, so we're not talking about a lot of movement production here, or if the case, you'd think that Breitling, launching the successor to the Chronomat in the Navitimer would reduce production of other chronographs using the Venus 178 in order to launch its new signature watch?

Another explanantion for the drop in numbers might be that Breitling had a surplus of watches that it couldn't sell and chose to reduce output until it's stock evened out. It's interesting that their output drops again 1957. Then again maybe it's something completely different, love to hear people's ideas?

I guess I come back to the question of whether the Valjoux 72 was the FIRST Navitimer or whether there was a 1952 version which used the Venus 178. If the Valjoux was first then it's possible that Breitling wanted to try another movement for any number of reasons, e.g. reduce their reliance on Venus. If they switched from Venus to Valjoux then that might point more to a problem with Venus and/or the movements, rather than Breitling prototyping another movement.

I'm enjoying the debate going on here and wonder if this drop in numbers is a coincidence or might be connected to the answer.

If Venus was having production problems the movements may have been outsourced to Valjoux by Venus (with Breitling's agreement). Remember that by this stage Ebauches SA was fairly tightly knit and both Venus and Valjoux were part of that group. There was also a somewhat unusual alliance between Ebauches SA and ASUAG which was the other major movement manufacturing group but also the major mainspring / barrel supplier to all manufacturers so parts problems there may have impacted specific calibers.

All speculation of course!

Thanks Roff. So I guess I'm barking up the wrong tree with the idea Breitling was playing one off the other.

I don't know anything about Ebauches SA was it a company that owned Venus, Valjoux, etc and controlled them like say Swatch does today, or was it more of a guild a body they belonged to and acted in their members interest?