The Breitling Watch Source Forums

this from ebay. Please let me know your opinions!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0234559723

25 bids from 12 bidders, picked it up for $455 USD

I know nothing about vintage Breitlings, hopefully it's not a "franken"

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By the way, assuming this is good enough to keep around, where would I get a good/proper leather strap for this?

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I'm really starting to dread looking at the vintage thread - I seem to be on a run of negativity here at the moment.

First off - at $455 you didn't pay too much. To handle the strap issue - highly unlikely that you'll find a vintage Breitling - you can get a new one from an AD, but bear in mind that the strap may look thick realtive to the watch. Also remember that the buckle may look odd relative to the watch.

OK, so now the watch - apologies, this is going to be brutal.......

First off it's from South America which makes me extremely suspicious even if I can't find anything wrong with the watch (Argentina is becoming very well known as a source of frankenwatches so there is an increase in other South American sources).

There are photos of everything on this watch except a model number or serial number, seems very odd to me - the model number should be on the caseback, so is missing, the serial may well be on hte inside of the caseback, but the seller obviously took the caseback off so where's the serial number?

The caseback says fonte injectee - which Google translates to melting injected - not sure that's quite right, but I have never seen it on a Breitling before (the other French means Stalinless Steel.

The blue hands are extremely odd, blued steel hands are not uncommon, but these aren't that, they are way too bright for my liking. The dial itself looks too small for the case - lots of white space around the outside which is not like Breitling. I have no idea what the inner 'mile' dial is supposed to show - 12 1/2 to a full rotation?????

The logo on the dial has definitely been added later - it's not fine enough to be real - things like the dot on the second 'i' touching the loop of the 'l' - there should be a gap. The hands also look wrong for 40s or 50s.

As far as the movement is concerned, I might buy that it's from a Breitling - the name could have been added later, but I'm not prepared to say that for sure. Tjhat siad, I have no idea what the movement is. There are a few markings - CB and what looks like F43, but I can't reconcile them to anything I know (there was a FEF430 movement used by Breitling, but that's a simple watch movement for a women's watch).

My guess would be that they had a movement with Breitling movements and assembled a watch around it. The only thing I find intriguing is the movement - I wish I knew what it was - I'm going to have to dig deeper today.

Sorry for all the negativity, but as I said at the start - you didn't pay too much.

Roffensian, don't apologize. That's why we are asking - to get an honest opinion. Brutal, it might be, but honest indeed.

It's really great to have access to your knowledge (and the rest of the Vintage experts as well) and I enjoy reading your answers - they are highly educational (or is it educative? My English fails...).

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Collection: http://s540.photobucket.com/albums/gg32 ... mview=grid

Thanks Aleister - educational it is - though my English would appear to fail based on some of my typing in that previous post - not enough coffee obviously

I love this forum! and I certainly appreciate the amount of great knowledge and information. Thank you for your honest evaluation.

I've sent them an email asking for additional pictures, hopefully that'll help with the serial number dilemma at the very least.

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You really know your vintage stuff Roff! We're not worthy!

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Still can't find the movement. I'm fairly convinced that it's a Valjoux movement, but no idea which one.

Roff

The blue hands look like they're off an older Montbrillant - 1 sweep hand and 2 sub dials in blue which look identical!

Thought that may help.

http://thumbnail.image.rakuten.co.jp/@0 ... /br031.jpg

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Aerospace Titanium & Gold - Grey Face
B-1 on Fighter/Blue Shark - Blue Face
Emergency on Pro - Yellow Face

To complete the collection:
Navi 01 46/Black leather - Black/white
Montbrillant Datora/Navi - White face


LEARNING.......EVERY DAY

I actually think that the subdial hands look more like the blued steel hands on my Lemania Cosmo (http://breitlingsource.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2576), although I agree with you on the chrono seconds hand. What concerns me most is the colour though. Blued steel is nowhere near as bright as this blue.

The movement is still doing my head in - can't match it to any Breitling movement I have pictures off. I'm probably missing something very obvious.

Got the movement!!!!

But it's more bad news I'm afraid.

The movement is a Landeron 349, sorry I can't find pictures online to show comparison.

In this case I'm guessing that it was the first movement that fit, but it tells me that the Breitling was added later (the bridge is correct for the 349) as, contrary to popular belief, Landeron movements have never been proven to have been used in Breitlings. I put it that way because there are recurring rumours, but I have never seen, and don't know anyone who has ever seen, a documented Breitling with a Landeron movement.

So what you have here is definitely a collection of various parts with Breitling added along the way.

Thank you so much for the help!

I haven't paid for it yet, and they have so far ignored all my requests for more pictures etc.

Hmmm, back to the drawing board I guess...

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