The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I've not seen any other pics of the Breitling vintage collection except the rather
frustratingly angled ones on TZ.

Breitling seems to have taken some of them on tour to Spain (anyone know if they went anywhere else?) and
here are some different pics of them.

http://www.relojes-especiales.com/foros ... os-124396/

Some nice pieces:

Very nice.

I know someone who had a factory tour a couple of years back when he went over to Basel and he has some photos of the ones that they have on display at the head office, but they don't seem to get much exposure.

Hey Roff.


Be nice to see them if he wants to share.

It would be really great to see what their vintage collection looks like inside and out. Make a nice reference for us, especially
for the pre-Forties watches. Do they have a museum in Switzerland?

I would love to see what the two in the background of this shot looked like up close. The one on the right
has the most amazing lugs.

I'll ask him.

I don't think that it's a proper 'museum', from what he was saying it's just display cases in the head office - I assume around a board room, in the reception, etc.

that square case Premier is so choice man... super sweet~! Never knew one existed...

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

. . . FAQ page belongs (or belonged) to Schwanke-Kasten Jewelers, who is a Breitling dealer in Milwaulkee, Wisconsin. I think it has only toured a couple of times.

The collection you're showing in Spain seems to be a different collection and it doesn't seem that it's owned by Breitling SA.

It also seems odd that some of the dials have been redone. In particular, I think we can be quite sure there was never a "Premier" in a square case. It would be nice to see more views of each.

I saw a Premier, round, at the non-Breitling AD. It was nice. But man was it was tiny.

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SHARKMAN

I have been dabbling in vintage Breitling's for about 15 years now and have never seen a square chrono come up for sale (that I remember). Richters book has them but have never seen any really good pics of one even.

Me either. The obvious fakes come up from South America and there was the one that our German / Belgian / Dutch friend had (has?) a while back, but nothing original.

Me either. The only refs I have are some catalogue material.
This is from the 1946 catalogue.
This is from an older catalogue, I believe late Thirties or early Forties, but pre-1942 as no Chronomat. (Breitling the Book puts it at 1941 which seems late for all the dials to be unsigned?)
A couple of things pop out to me, they have the same refs across the catalogues (and Richter lists them as square cased) and they are potentially small with only 10.5 Ligne movements, which I suppose could have made them the smallest chronograph movements at the time? Anything smaller than that?

When I read that my gut feeling was to agree with you. I thought it was the collection shown over at Timezone, but it appears to be different. However it does seem to be connected with Breitling, as page 105 of Breitling the Book shows the exact same watch which I assume was photographed for the book (from their collection?)
Also p111 shows another watch from this collection as well.


That started me thinking about the Premier mark, I had always assumed that it was a model name, like Chronomat, Datora or Duograph. However all those names appear in the 1946 catalogue, but Premier does not. Also models that we know as Premiers. Like this 789.http://people.timezone.com/breitling/bfaq/Vintage_Collection.html

Appear in the 1946 catalogue without the Premier designation. I am not sure exactly what this means, perhaps Premier was used more like Geneve was later on, as a marketing tool as opposed to signifying a specific model. If that was the case then the square case Premier could well exist.

Like I said all just guess work. Has anyone got any catalogue material showing Premier on the dial?

Premier wasn't a model name, rather a way to show that it was a high quality piece - often (but not always) in gold cases.

I did the same exercise with 1946 catalog and discovered the one instance 'Premier' appears. [I'm at work (ssshhhh) so I'm scribing from memory and forgive me if I recall incorrectly] 'Premier' appears on the dial of the watch in the very front showing the chronograph features in four languages. In other words, it doesn't appear in the catalog body, but in the introductory material.

From the serial numbers on the watches, I think 1945 is the first occurrence of 'Premier' and it is definitional, but I would say it is a series of models. There were different models of Chronomat (two register, three register, and moonphase) and Datora, too. It's not a 'special' model, like Chronomat and Navitimer, but in my mind it has the same status.

The mid-1950s ad reproduced on page 119 of Richter's shows the six most common ref. numbers. Let's see if I remember them correctly.

three reg, square pushers, 734, larger diameter
three reg, round pushers, 765, larger diameter
three reg, square pushers 787
three reg, round pushers, 788
two reg, square pushers, 789
two reg, round pushers, 790

Two-reg, square pusher larger diameter 760s were pretty common in the 1940s, and there are many examples of the 797 with horned lugs (if that's a good word for them).

If you go to the Pere Quera website, you can see pictures posted from the event this year. It looks like the images posted at the Rejoles forum were taken of watches displayed in the cabinets along the wall under the long arch.

http://en.perequera.com/events/2010/breitling/

If Breitling had a collection that toured I would like to know about it and try to catch up with it. Open those cabinets and let us play with these beasties! I would especially like closer looks at the models with the fancy lugs. [Say that in a bar and you're sure to get slapped.] I can see a fancy-lugged 733 and maybe a 723, too (see Richter page 29).

It's interesting that the Chronomat is listed as 1945, but it has a dial and handset from the late 1950s. It's also interesting to note that some in this collection are in The Book. I wonder who owns what.

I'll tell you this, if Pere Quera still has this collection, let's all go for a road trip and I'll buy the tapas and sangria.

And, I was wrong in my list of watches on Richter page 119 (he dates it "circa 1958"). Ref. 760 is the larger format two-register, square pusher Premier. Ref. 790 has dropped off.

Breitling have been acquiring (or at least trying to acquire) quite a number of pieces to build their collection - the bankruptcy left the cupboards pretty bare and they weren't focused on building a history for quite some time afterwards. However, I suspect that they have been less than selective in the past about some of the pieces - remember that a lot of the records also got lost / destroyed after 1978 and so they may not have as much evidence of what is right / wrong as we might expect.

I also believe that they have been unable to acquire all of the pieces that they have tried to obtain so wouldn't be surprised if the book at least contains borrowed pieces.