The Breitling Watch Source Forums

: Hi all, I'm a newbie and this is my first post.

I've owned an 806 black-face Navitimer for close to 30 years. I wouldn't consider myself a collector, just a lover of nice design and engineering.
Whilst I was working in France in 1997 I had it cleaned and serviced by Sercom located in Besancon (I think they are the official Breitling service centre now). They did a nice job and confirmed 806 movement and 1971 as year of manufacture. I wore it regularly until 2007 then unfortunately it slipped off a table onto possibly the worse surface (quarry tiles) and got damaged. Then life got in the (best possible) way with the arrival of twins and said Navitimer has sat in a dusty drawer in a damp Victorian house since then. The attached photos show it as-refurbished in 1997 against current condition. Apart from the physical damage it has picked up a lot of dust & dirt and possibly corrosion to the face. The physical damage is a fair bit more than the cracked perspex, the black face sits slightly proud of the tachymeter and you can feel the movement rattling around within the case. Hands are still attached and I've never attempted to move them or press any buttons since it was dropped. I'd like to get this watch back to good usable condition but I'm slightly alarmed by some of the official Breitling repair/refurbishment costs flying about on various forums. Can anyone recommend a UK or Europe based repairer who can tackle this.

Cheers

dial is refinished, you'd first need to try and find a correct dial, ideally.
There are several guys in the UK who come highly recommended, discussed here recently:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=65632

Thank you.

What does the expression "refinished" mean? Is it degraded beyond repair or was it refurbished once already and cannot be done again.

It means that the original dial design was removed and a new dial design printed. If you look on google images for "navitimer 806 black" you'll see that the design is different, albeit it might be subtle for someone not used to looking at dials, but it is quite different. So your original dial is no more.

Ah, now I understand, it must have been sold to me originally like that. I've never seen a black face "twin jet" and doing a google picture search prompted by your reply they don't appear to exist. Which explains it. I've pulled the receipt for the refurb and the only thing Sercom changed was the small dial hands because they were coloured and should have been white. Interesting that the bill then was about 1,800FF which I think was around €300.

To be fair, the correct dial design is not all black. It’s black with white subdials, so just google “Navitimer 806”. The all black dial is earlier and had different hands and bezel design to what you have.

So essentially, to get mine back to what it should be like I need black face white subdials if I can find one. The sheet from Sercom also confirms mine as a Venus 178 movement, serial number agrees with 1971. So is mine a complete "frankenstein" or just an incorrect dial.

You would have wanted this dial. Then you’d be fine for 1971.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/039-Big-Eyes ... 7675.l2557

Cheers for that.

Watch eBay. They do come up. Need the one with the big subdials, not small. If I see one (snd I remember) I’ll let you know.

Cheers for that. At least I know what I'm looking for now. The post has really been useful. I've a Chrono-Matic 2111 in much better condition that only really needs a good service and clean, I'll follow up on the links in the other post for that. The Navitimer is a longer and much more involved project.