The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Ebay has two pre-806 Navitimers listed (143355370844 and 193047349941). When compared to my watch, the lume on the numbers for both watches seem to be painted on crudely and the lume color on the hands does not seem to match. Have the dials and/or hands been refinished? Still learning here and I have to admit noticing subtle differences is quite fascinating.

The 2 others are both fine. Lume gone black with age. On the original dial, the numbers are first printed in white and the lume overlayed. On the good aged dials, the lume seems to either “shrink” away from the edge of the white area, or was never applied to the edge at all. Old lume also tends to have a texture to it.

Hand and dial lume colour often do not match, as dials and hands were purchased from different suppliers, who’s formula for lume might have differed. The second one with the greenish lume has been redone at some time but certainly not recently.

If mine.jpg is yours, that is in pretty rough shape. I hope the hands were floating around inside.

The hands are in there. Came this way from the original owner. Never touched. Was stored away since the 60s. Her father evidently got some use out of it. He was a pilot and aircraft radio repairman and installer.

Don’t confuse rough with original. It’s a gem.

You know I don’t. My focus was on the "missing" parts and the difficulty of finding replacements. I'm glad they were still there. That said, collecting is a balance between authenticity, condition and provenance, and sometimes there is a tension between the criteria, made more difficult with the current obsession with "patina".

What obsession with patina? Seems just the opposite to me. Perfection is all important to most.

Perhaps you've spent little time in Facebook groups, or in Rolex and Omega forums.