The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hello to everybody,

I'm a top time afficionado as well and joined this forum for the vintage chrono's.
Personally the Angelus top time looks horrible to me, not talking about the goldfilled case , the poorly redone dial and the anonymous crown...
Thanks to the poster who set the 3 links online, personally I will consider the 3rd watch, it looks perfect to me ( All original super condition and very classy ), besides after checking all internet, so far I could not find a better price.
Concerning the front loading, I had a similar one ( Ref. 2002 ) a few years ago and indeed it was like that.
The crown a bit "off" is because you can take it out yourself if you pull hard and push it back in again, so it depends if you are perfectionnist or not when you do it.
I think that the top time is the best deal in the vintage chrono's, classy, easy to wear Breitlings.

Question to Roff the prof !
Just checked the second (german) top time, how comes that the hands and markers are gold in a steel case ? Did the seller tampered with the watch ( Made steel a goldfilled case ) ? Doesn't seems at all original to me...

2nd one sounds a bit risky to me given the feedback, so I'll give it a miss. With a bit of work the last one (810) I linked to could be a decent deal, although I'm confused about the hands - the central second and two of the sub-dials are orange, the last is black. Is that not unusual, or is it in keeping with your "hands treated as consumables" comment Roffensian? Not a huge fan of the gold case though, I must admit, much prefer the SS version.

It looks OK to me - the caseback is worn, but other than that it looks OK. The dial has been cleaned / restored, but I think that it's original - tough to tell without larger / closer pictures.

The movement is obviously a concern, so it does come down to 'buy the seller', if you are comfortable that the guy will accept the watch back if the movement is wrong then it's probably worth a risk. Make sure that you agree on who is going to provide the examination - you don't want to have a disagreement over who is qualified to declare it real or not.

Thanks as always for the comments Roff.

I'd be giving it to Breitling themselves to look at (they do it reasonably cheaply and their London HQ is near me. Shouldn't be much disagreement there I'd hope!).

Yeah, they should know - although it's not the same company now (the original Breitling went bankrupt in 1978).

What do you make of this one, redone dial? The 'Swiss' under the Breitling looks a little stange.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Breitling-TOP-TIME-3-Register-Chronograph-watch-/180554723774?pt=Wristwatches&hash=item2a09e671be

It may just be the photo - look at the Top of Top Time and that looks weird too.

If it is a redial then it's a damn good one. Lack of movement shots would put me off though.

Another possibility! (It's not sold)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BREITLING-TOP-TIM ... Watches_GL

Movement/inside case-back photos won't be available, but seller offers return if not genuine so can check that if I get it. Dial looks a little too new though, practically zero patina. Over-restored, perhaps?

Also, the case-back looks odd. All the previous ones I've seen have had the model ref (this looks like an 810?) as well as the serial #. Not the original case back perhaps?

So, received the watch this morning (no camera so can't take pics). Just spotted that the 'SWISS MADE' script under at the 6 o'clock position reads 'SWISS MADET'. I've seen this on others too - is the 'T' meant to refer to 'Trademark'? Just looks odd.

Also, when winding the crown (clockwise), should it be a smooth-wind, or should there be some "resistance" (i.e. you wind up and it partially winds itself back in the opposite direction). Stupid question, but I don't want to wind it if there's a problem and further damage the movement spring/ratchet!