The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Found this today with a very usual sub dials. I'm guessing it's somewhere between early 70s. But I would love to know more about it? Cheers guys!!

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Serial number dates to very late 69. Hands are wrong, movement probably a calibre 12 but would want to see it.

Cal. 15, Roff (running seconds at 9:30). agree hands are wrong, dial seems partly refinished and slightly botched. assembled much later than '69.

Oh yeah

I bought one of these from a German seller about 10 years ago. It had been water damaged and the movement was a rusty clump of frozen parts. The case was good though and I sourced another cal 11 movement and used a new dial. This dial has been residing in my parts drawer ever since.

As far as I know, Cal.15 was derivated from Cal.12 and appeared in 1973 or 1974.
Breitling cased it in previous models , a 2110 with cal.15 is called 2110-15. It is quite unusual dur to small number issued , much less than cal.11 and cal.12 versions , but it does not make it more valuable .

Saabreit: yes, difference to Cal 11/12 is: permanent small second instead 12h counter and no incablock.

First production was 1969.

Cal_11

@cal_11: would you please tell us the source for the Cal.15 launch in 1969 ?

A couple of pictures of one i have, Cal 15 and i believe late 69, would have to check the serial number.

'69 case does not mean '69 assembly

Watchfred: Maybe you're right. My 2110-15 has also a 1969 serial number.

Cal_11

I would say your right, earlier cases with Cal 15 movements, all three of these have 69 serial numbers, one has Cal11-2 movement the other 2 Cal 15. My understanding was Cal 15 was introduced 71 / 72?

according to ALL available documentation, Cal.15 were launched in 1972/1973. these were not replacements for the Cal.12, but an entry level alternative, aimed at massively cutting production costs by removing the hour counter, changing the shock protection from Incabloc to KIF, replacing the Glycidur balance wheel by a brass wheel and removing the micro regulation.

anybody who claims his Cal.15 is a "69" is plain wrong; no other way to put it, sorry.

Given the changes that were occurring to calibre 11 / 12 in 69 it is illogical to think that they would be developing a new version of it at the same time. With the transformation from 11 to 11-C to 11-2 to 12 that happened in little more than a year there is no way that the base could have been used to develop 15 at the same time, they would have had to have restarted the project every time that the base calibre changed. 15 simply has to be later.

When Cal11 was developped as a risk sharing project associating Breitling, Büren , Hamilton and Heuer. The cal 11 was not disclosed to other companies and the associate in charge of production was Büren . The chrono plate was developped elsewhere as a module ( Dubois ? ) and was common with Valjoux 7740
Cal 11 was beatin at 19800 a/h, and it was rhodium plated .
Cal 12 quickly appeared as an improvement beating at 21600 a/h.
Then Büren closed , and remaining associates had to find a subcontractor for production.
Another company took over the production, I do not have my documents there but as far as I remember it was Kelek , driven by Jean Raoul Gorgerat.
Cal 12 was sold to new companies - ie Elgin , Sorna, Herma , and in parallel the cal. 15 was declinated as a low cost version .
Just see the Heuer range , they also launched cal 15 based versions of the Monaco, Autavia, Carrera with this cal 15 , in order to slow down the agony of their sales in the field of mechanical watches .
From the Breitling side, sales had decreased so much that they had to use old cases - with SN corresponding to previous years with new cal.15 and dials . Some of these watches had a -15 stamped after the SN but not all .
Pre -death period...