The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Green is not emerald and purple is not amethyst. The use of the latter terms to describe the former is intended only to ascribe positive attributes which, in reality, may or may not be there.

I don't think Breitling use of "anthracite" is more misleading than any other term that is used to describe color for any product. I presume you're looking at the Google images/wikipedia to make your assertion that the grey dial is nowhere near the color of anthracite?

Take a look at the other items that come up on the Google image search. There are numerous items of clothing/apparel which have the same description of "anthracite" - they are all matte grey. I'd argue that the common usage of "anthracite", (the one that Breitling uses to describe the dial color) is apt. When most people hear "anthracite", they think "matte grey" and not "high purity coal with a luster".

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

This, especially in the leather industry.

I'm afraid it's one of those cases where fact and popular understanding have a bit of a gulf between them; meanings and understandings of words and phrases change over time, too.

I took your suggestion to do a search on anthracite items, and it seems there is a fair amount of uncertainty about this. Some sources stick to the description of real anthracite, whereas others seem to embrace it as more of a grey. OK, fair enough...I don't really get why the name of something inherently shiny and black became a descriptor of something matte grey, but if it has, I don't suppose Breitling can be faulted for sticking to a popularly accepted conception. Regardless, the grey Chronomat dial does not look any more interesting for being called anthracite than if they called it "cat litter dust on an unmopped floor," which would be a more accurate descriptor, in my opinion.

I actually started with written descriptions of what anthracite is, and its appearance, both in dictionaries and online sites, including Wikipedia and various geological sites, one of which I linked to in my original post. The written descriptions are clear: real anthracite is black and shiny, definitively so. The online pictures only back up this description. I'm not relying on assumptions I have reached simply by looking at pictures. However, I do acknowledge I have not seen actual anthracite in person. I did, however, have a Chronomat with an anthracite dial, and I can say that it was neither black nor shiny.

I didn't say green is emerald or purple is amethyst. I said emeralds are green, and amethysts are purple. (I'm speaking generally, since I know there is a range of shades for both gems.) Do you disagree? I don't disagree with your latter statement, but I do think if you describe an item as emerald, people will expect it to be some shade of green; if you describe something as amethyst, people will expect it to be some shade of purple. Here I would draw a distinction between your examples and mine. The popular understandings of "emerald" and "amethyst" at least somewhat mirror the realities of those materials. The popular understanding of what "anthracite" represents would appear to depart from the reality of what anthracite actually is.

Just come out and call it "SLATE"......sounds more sophisticated as well as practical ...rather than "slate grey"..............err err ill get my coat

_________________
SUPER AVENGER 563 AIRFORCE BLUE
WHITE SUBS, PRO11 BRACELET

As someone who has a few chunks of anthracite around the house (I've toured an Anthracite mine), and having burned a few tons of it over the years, the BEST description I can give you is "BLACK Glass" - very very much like Obsidian, if you've ever seen it - it can be polished to a HIGH gloss, and on fracture planes (similar to those pictures) is as smooth and shiny as glass

That said, I know when designers say "Anthracite", they are more thinking "a slightly darker shade of grey than a graphite pencil makes"

BTW - to give you an idea of how hard/smooth anthracite is, I would have NO qualms about handing a clean piece to someome wearing a white shirt - Bituminous, or even semi-anthracite - ah, not unless I wanted them to turn black

Interesting information, KG. Thanks. Ironically, Breitling actually makes three grey dials: graphite, which is the darkest, slate grey, which is slightly lighter, and anthracite, which is the lightest of the three. Go figure.

Well, well Jackson, we're caught up in a good ol' fashioned semantic tug-of-war here!

I didn't mean to insult your observational skills or somehow imply that you weren't bringing up a valid contradiction of a desciptor and reality. My point is that creative naming of colors is done almost anywhere you look and there's no reason to indict Breitling for this particular one.

In my opinion, the terms "ruby-red", "emerald-green", "amethyst-purple", "anthracite-grey" are all of the same ilk. Emeralds are green, but they are also shiny and translucent - not all green items that are descibed as "emerald" share these same characteristics. I don't find that fact that Breitling calls their dials anthracite misleading, as your OP would suggest.

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

In light of what has been revealed during our (very enlightening, imo) discussion, I will retract that statement. I still don't agree with Breitling's use of the term, but there are a number of popularly accepted things I don't agree with personally. That doesn't mean use of such things is inherently misleading, if they are in fact popularly accepted. I'm man enough to admit when I'm off the mark. Thanks for everyone's input.

Amen to that!

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

I suspect that the "silver grey" that has come to be called graphite is because of those shiny glass like reflections I talked about on the REAL black - those reflections are silver grey, at least in white light

I had wondered about that, too. If that's where is comes from, it strikes me as silly reasoning, since the whole allure of things that are shiny is how the reflections shift in the changing light, and reveal the dimensionality of the object. Taking a reflection's abstract color and turning it into a uniform, static hue for an entire object does away with the very thing people found alluring about the reflecting object to begin with, imo.

Talk about your poor choice of words! That one would even make Joe Biden proud!

I was thinking more about Sarah Palin when I said it.