The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hi All, have been collecting watches and started doing some basic repairs over the past year, and have just bought my first breitling project. It is a breitling shark chrono auto. However it looks like it has had some damage over the years and some non-breitling replacement parts, certainly the dial has lost some paint.... My guess is that it has run into some sort of trouble (water damage maybe?) and then had a sub-standard repair. From what i can see i am currently suspecting that the crown has been replaced with generic (seems too flat and no breitling B on it), and the hands (can't see any pictures of sharks on the net with red hands, also the second hand does not have the breitling B on it). Also on the bezel the lume dot at the top is a dark colour, not green? (maybe this is dirt under the bezel)
Am about to embark on the necessary repairs but am curious about people's thoughts on this watch. In particular whether the hands/crown are original or not. Also people's thoughts on where to source a replacement dial would be appreciated.






thanks in advance!
Ben.

Date wheel doesn't look original either - if there were a decent fake of this then I would say that this was fake, but to the best of my knowledge there isn't.

You are going to have a tough time sourcing genuine Breitling parts as Breitling doesn't make them available and there won't be many floating around on eBay for a watch this old.

Hand set and crown are definitely replacements. Date wheel looks similar but not the same as my quartz Shark so could be a replacement.

That's one hell of a tough project you've taken on!

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Thanks guys, yeah i might've bitten off more than i can chew lol! it was quite cheap anyway, so was always going to be a bit of a risk. I will keep up the search on ebay, and will probably go visit my local watchmaker for his advice at some stage...any other ideas on contacts for parts?

Hi All, am continuing to work on this 'project' I notice the watch takes the 'professional' bracelet. But i understand there were several different models of this bracelet (879A, 861A etc). Can anyone assist me in determining the correct bracelet model number for my Shark? Also would an 893A or an 879A fit correctly?
thanks in advance,
Ben.

End links are generally unique to each model so unlikely that others will fit. I don't have references this old for bracelets, but not sure that it would have originally come with Professional because it is too old. Sharkmouth may know, he has the quartz version of the watch.