The Breitling Watch Source Forums

FedEx was kind enough to drop this off via Germany on Monday. It came on the strap below and after about 30 seconds I put it on a black ISOFrane. Decided to swap it back today and see if I can live with the buckle till I find a suitable 24mm replacement. It is cartoonishly huge. Borderline silly IMO. Besides the buckle I'm quite happy with if for my first Bronze watch and first watch with any ceramic. Very nice build quality. The caseback has super clean lines and just seems to drop into the case, the tiny polished edge offsets the brushed parts nicely and reminds me of my Planet Ocean in that way. The green face is hard to capture, looking a lot better in person than in pictures. It is quite large but with the short lugs its does not wear as large as I feared. Was a bit on the fence with the size - for sure the largest I would ever go. Feels about the same as my SS SeaWolf in thickness and maybe a tad lighter. Great lume and a really nice ratchet/snap to the divers bezel. The bezel is probably my favorite part...but the all bronze option was tempting too. The black strap in the pix is from MadDog and super soft I really like the strap and how it wears for such a big (24mm) and thick piece. It also came with a brown distressed leather strap and very nice looking distressed green canvas...but all have the same uber-buckle. Lucky the ISO was 1/2 price with the watch so I just need a bronze buckle for the ISOFrane and I'll be good for a while.

Anyone interested in 24mm bronze buckles the size of a half dollar let me know. Enjoy the pix. Curious what you all think. Pretty good value I think, wanted something different and bronze with green face seemed just that.

NICE!

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"A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure."

I'm a sucker for lumed bezels, so of course I like it. Nice polished edge on the case as well. Good Lord, that buckle! Please let us know how the bronze ages as time goes on. Congrats!

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Scott

AP Royal Oak 15400, silver
Zenith Chronomaster El Primero Classic Cars
Vintage gold Corum
Rolex DJ 36 TT, oyster dial, oyster/smooth
Baume & Mercier Riviera 200m, silver dial/aquamarine bezel
Breitling Superocean 57, rose/stainless

That buckle is indeed ridiculous. Watch is nice though! Congrats and wear it in good health. Hope you find a smaller bronze buckle

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Great looking piece and will develop some wonderful patina over time. I don't mind the style of the buckle if only it were smaller, maybe you could get a metalsmith to cast you a smaller version from bronze?

Thanks for the comments so far guys. I too like the style of buckle especially on the straps that don't taper. I have a D9 strap with a buckle much like this but both thinner and smaller. I think I am actually more likely to knock the buckle against a door/wall when walking around versus the watch.

Here is the distressed canvas strap. I like the fact that it is pretty rugged/casual and I don't have anything like it. Green/green is nice too, but I gotta find a 24mm bronze buckle for it. Thinking even the ebay ones with submarine silhouette would foot the bill short term. Love the idea of custom made...wonder where one finds a metal smith? I saw a guy on WUS gave his a LOS bath and the patina look great, I'm looking forward to mine aging on its own, naturally, as I hopefully make some good memories.

I like the canvas strap. Where did you pick that up?

The watch/package was quite a bargain if you got in on the pre-buy. $300 MadDog (black strap) was included as incentive for pre-buy, brown distressed leather was standard issue, you could buy an ISOFrane for 1/2 price during prebuy, I never see them discounted and the canvas strap just showed up with the watch/box/papers/screw drive all in a nice pelican case. Not really sure why I got the canvas strap for free, but happy none the less.

You can get the strap at link below if interested. I'm thinking the "sand" color might actually be nicer with the bronze over the green. The standard SS buckle that is shown with that strap looks much more reasonable. I'm guessing that MadDog made the huge buckles for the 300 pre-buy straps included with the watches and thus made more gigantic buckles for the standard straps (brown). I did not receive a stainless buckle with the canvas, so can't comment on them directly. In addition to the ISOfrane with it's standard buckle I got the black shark, brown leather, green canvas and two bronze mega-buckles. I wonder what the scrap value is on the buckles is?
http://www.h2o-watch.com/armbander-vers ... -24mm.html

Still waiting on my black dial, non-ceramic bezeled version of that bad-boy to arrive myself. Still no shipping notification.

Real nice looking piece rplace! (But then I am somewhat biased!)

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Really D8!!?? That stinks. I was guessing they were shipping in the order payment was made and think you opted in way before me? Do you know what serial number you will have? I am 269. I was seeing lots of numbers lower to mine over a WUS before mine arrived so that would suggest build/shipping in order as well.

Really very nice! Bronze is a pretty fantastic material and it pairs really well with the green dial and those strap. Congrats! Bronze is really an interesting alloy for a watch and I can't wait to see some pics as it ages.

As far as the buckle (which, as you say, is ridiculous), you can call up a few machine shops and they will gladly trim the one you have. Instead of casting/milling an all new one, you could trim the fat from the existing one pretty easily. My experience (for a host of engineering projects) has been that there is no job too big or small for these guys, and they will be able to deliver whatever you imagine for (relatively) low cost. Give 3-4 shops a call and I'm sure you'll find a place with time to do the job - bronze is pretty straightforward to machine and you can specify a brushed, polished or bead-blasted finish.

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“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” - Albert Einstein