The Breitling Watch Source Forums

When I was on the cruise a couple weeks ago, one of the AD's in Jamaica was willing to sell me this watch for $11,000 total - any thoughts on the watch/price? I may book another cruise in January, I keep thinking of this watch and may buy it.

Also, curious, is Zenith watches the same as the company that makes TV's? Stupid question, but that has never stopped me before.

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Zenith is one of the great names in watch manufacturing, established in the mid 19th century, but actually was acquired by the American Zenith Radio Corporation in the early 1970s, shortly after introducing the El Primero, competing with Breitling/Heuer/Buren to launch the first automatic chronograph watch movements (still undecided who shipped them first, actually) . Zenith Radio Corp. then decided in the mid 70s to cease the production of mechanical watches and move to Quartz only, apparently one Zenith watchmaker rescued the El Primero by "losing" tools, drawings and machines and hiding them away, so production could restart a decade later; nice story, no idea if really true.

Today Zenith is part of LVMH and had some years of launching rather questionable design abominations (personal opinion only), but has returned to it´s design roots lately with some very nice, classic watches. the Split Second is a good example; technically they have always been among the best, though I heard about some reliability issues.

Yes, the new Zenith TV watch should be out in January I think if you search around you might be able to find an AD to do 30% off that watch. PM me if you want an AD. This one has a similar look and is 1/2 the price.

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"I don't own any watches, I just lease them"

Used to own a Zenith.

Now it apparently belongs to their maintenance centre, or at least it lives there!

LOL!

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Mat

Breitling Navitimer 01
Omega Seamaster 300mc
Omega Speedmaster Pro "Mitsukoshi Mod"
Seiko Prospek Orange Samurai

That's unbelievable that it hasn't been fixed yet. My VPH 36,000 was delivered to me with the hour chrono hand not resetting properly. I wrote a letter to the brand director of Zenith North America about the issue and he had me send the watch to him, it was fixed in 24 hours, tested for two days in QC, and returned to me the following day. Granted, mine only needed a drop of lubrication to fix the resetting issue, your watch should have been fixed or replaced by now. That's unacceptable.

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"I don't own any watches, I just lease them"

If you mean the SS model on the alligator strap, $11K is not a good price and you can do much better for that $13K watch.

But if you mean the rose gold and DLC model with the inregrated rubber strap, then 11K is a very good price for this $18K model.

Do a search here with the word Zenith. There are many threads on these extraordinary watches. For a while the Daytona was the only Rolex without an in-house movement - it used Zenith's mighty El Primero chrono movement. 36,000bph rather than the standard 28,800 in most other watches.

(Zenith is pronounced with a short E, not the long E popularized in the old TV commercials for ZEEEEnith elctronic appliances.)

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SHARKMAN

Tom's right, I believe it's pronounced Zen-ith, Zen sounding like Den.

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"I don't own any watches, I just lease them"

If it's pronouced in french, this is the right way to pronounce it.

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Mat

Breitling Navitimer 01
Omega Seamaster 300mc
Omega Speedmaster Pro "Mitsukoshi Mod"
Seiko Prospek Orange Samurai

With that info on the etymology of the brand, I will have no problem pronouncing it with the long E in the future.

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Chrono Avenger M1, Ti- yellow dial, on Pro II Ti bracelet.
Avenger Code Yellow LE, on Diver Pro II strap, w/arabic dial.

Thanks for the info on the pronunciation, I found a stock photo, this was the exact one - I remember the rubber because I smelled it after all the talk on this site about vanilla being bad LOL (this didn't smell like vanilla).

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I can't imagine how much you spend annually on maintaining your watches.

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$11k is a heck of a deal on that watch. I don't think you could do any better than $12k on that piece here in the states if you find an AD willing to give a strong discount. Nice looking watch.

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"I don't own any watches, I just lease them"

Nothing on that Zenith.

And to be fair it's only spent 6 months of the last year in Switzerland.

It was in Jamaica on the cruise, the AD was very nice, even gave me a bottle of water and a beer!

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