Hello to all, and here is my tale of why I'm a fan of Breitling.
Back in the early 70's I was a young lad on tip toe, gazing in the window of a jewellers.
Among the nice shiney things on display was an array of wrist watches that looked different from all of the other makes.
These watches had high visibility DayGlo orange hands, and to me, this must have seemed a brilliant idea, so much so, that I made a mental note of the make...
You can't buy this kind of brand loyalty.
Moving forward several decades.
It is 2001.
I found myself having to select an engagement gift for myself. “I'm not one for jewellery, but I do like a good wristwatch”, and remembering my youth, “Breitling is my favourite”, I said.
Of modest income, with a Seiko Kinetic on my wrist, I had up to this point thought £200 was plenty to spend, I was in no illusion to what to expect when we went shopping for a Breitling.
A look at the official website narrowed down the model to a black dial Navitimer Cosmonaute on a bracelet as being my favourite. I love the idea of a 24 hour dial.
At the large department store, I was shown an 18k white gold Cosmonaute on a bracelet. Stunning, just about summed up what it looked like… and its price tag! I was in awe, but the price was way over our budget. A couple of other models were suggested, but a Navitimer was really what I was after. As luck would have it a black dial all stainless small cased Navitimer was on sale. This was the one. It turned out to be an Airbourne, and must have been NOS as I have since realised it had not been a line up model for a few years.
As we left with our new purchase, I remember the assistant saying, “Good luck with your Breitling collection”, to which I replied, “No, I think this will be the only one I’ll be able to afford”.
The assistant was right of course!
PS I eventually did get a vintage big case Cosmonaute with those orange DayGlo hands that had left an impression on me so long ago.
