Hello,
First off I'd like to compliment you guys on an excellent forum, although I'm not new to vintage watches I am new to Breitling and this forum has been a great resource so far.
Well I finally bought a vintage Navitimer, had been looking at them on and off for quite a while, I just fell across this one locally ...
From what I can tell, this 806 Navitimer is a circa 1972 gen V, with the Venus 178 movement.
As you can see, it has a bit of patina...
Looks like it took a good hit at one point, and the crystal was broken and the dial got damaged. The dial has scuffs on it, primarily between the seven and eight o'clock positions, and the second hand register is dented near the bottom.
The lume is gone from all of the indices, except for the 12.
The hands are are a bit rough with missing lume, and the second hand is red and bent, I'm guessing a replacement?
The case is in pretty good shape and has never been polished. The only exception is that one of the lugs is slightly bent downwards 1 or 2mm, it was probably dropped at some point.
The movement looks mint with no rust and runs, but obviously will require a full servicing.
Since the watch will never be original mint, I was thinking that I would go more for a sympathetic rebuild, rather than getting a full restoration?
I figured I'll get the dial cleaned up, but keep it rather than get a new service dial or redial.
I also figured that I would not get the case polished, just cleaned and left as is.
What do you guys think?
Happy New Year,
Paul
