The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Many of you may know that I put 1 or 2 relumed 806s on ebay each year (one coming in the next few weeks!) And I often get emails from people on this board wanting to buy them (until they realise they are relumed), so they must look good. I quite enjoy picking up a battered old 806 and giving it a new lease of life through a sensitive restoration. My experience is that collectors have no interest in relumes and don't buy them, and therefore value those watches no more than the sum of their parts. So, certainly devalued greatly. However, there is another group of buyer that just wants a clean, good looking, serviced vintage watch, and isn't wanting to pay the top top dollar a fully original version might cost. They just want a nice watch. These people will pay a proper if not equivalent price for a relumed watch.

What makes you think the inner bezel is not original?

Surely the serial number outside the case back is completely normal for an 806 of this period? Earlier examples had it inside.


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Inner bezels are the tires of Navitimer 806. They age very fast because there is no protection for it and that one looks too new to me the same way as the white hands are too new. If the inner bezel wouldn't age that fast, you wouldn't sell 1 bezel every week.

I checked over fifty 806 casebacks online and found only one had the serial number on the back AND also inside. If (2%) is your COMPLETELY NORMAL then it is all good, you get the cookie.

Thanks for your answer and opinion.
I disagree.
...And I wish!


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It is only a gut feeling. I see some good scratches on the case and although the insert is also damaged, I feel like it was renewed as the hands were renewed. Sorry, if I am spitting in your soup and you are selling this watch. :p

By the way, you sell them quite fast. After a few days of listing I want to send you a low balling message and notice, it is already gone. Don't complain, otherwise you can sell my garbage and I would sell your hot items.

It's called the sliderule



well - then you checked the wrong ones, as the serial number is outside the caseback from sometimes in 1967.

I see absolutely no reason to suspect that the sliderule has been replaced, as the red color on the arrows is a pretty good match, and there's wear / patina to it as well, but that's of course no guarantee that it hasn't.

Kurt B http://www.kurt-b.com

as Kurt says, some 806 from 1967 (I’d actually say the majority, but haven’t resesrched this in depth) have the serial outside - from 1968 onwards all the 806 have the serial on the outside of the caseback.

sliderule seems ok to me, dial shows an excellent re-lume

Will (wills0-9) sells them as "Slide Rule", 1 minute ago a seller sent me a massage and he calls it "Inner Ring", some other call them "Inner Bezel". My 50+ years old Breitling Navitimer instruction manual calls it "moveable disc", "outer white disc" or plain "white disc".



I just searched Internet for 806 and checked the first 50 or so. Almost all except one had it inside. There was/is one on eBay from 1967 with the serial number both inside and outside. Mine is from 1967 and has it inside. So it is correct that at some point in 1967 the serial number goes outside. And the one on eBay right now is the transitional one with both inside and outside. (I sound like a Rolex and Heuer collector now).



I don't agree. See the photo for the reason. Compare the 10s and the arrow on the dial and white ring. Both of them are written on white paint background. Therefore, they should look the same or the one on the dial should look better than the one on the white ring. Because the white ring has a thinner coating and is exposed to environmental damage a lot more than the dial.

I have no idea what you are trying to prove here.

dials and slide rule inserts (that is the term most widely used for these things, whatever you may decide to call them) and dials come from different production batches, potentially from different suppliers.

the red paint ”ages” differently among these batches - we see early big eye dials from 1968 where the red accents have almost faded away and remnants can only be seen with a loupe, while the inserts retain relatively stable red print.

but you are, of course, free to reach your own conclusions instead of listening to Kurt or me.

I don't need to prove nothing, Fred.

Do you like to be corrected like that? It is called whatever. I find it ridiculous to even mention it.

If the parts came from different producers then that might make sense, why the dial's red is disintegrating before the ring.

Sorry, you never answer to what I need to know when I open a thread. You completely ignore my questions. I am not going to just accept whatever you or Kurt says for a dogma. I spent enough time at the university to think on my own.

By the way, I might have chosen the wrong name. I am probably older than you and when I bought my first watch, you couldn't read a watch. So I don't need to bother here anymore. Even when I explained some facts about Breitling hands from the 60's, which nobody knew on this forum, you were skeptical and asked for examples, which were actually in the catalogue in the same thread. Nobody has sold more Breitling hands than me. You might know some history, I might know something else. You don't need to bash me, because I look at things differently.

well, I took the time to go through your posts - I find several where you thank me for helping you with issues, none that I "ignored", although I may have missed something, of course; can you remind me?