The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I made a simple calculation, 2011 minus 45 years = 1966.

I know absolutely nothing about what Breitling made in late 1974, so I'm outta here..... ! ! !


Kurt B

Whew, lots of learning here, thanks guys. Just out of curiosity, Luminova would have been more 80's right, when did luminova application start with Breitlings? Tritium would have been present even on 70"s watches true, esp with the "T Swiss T". For example my Rolex 1680 with tritium markers and the "T Swiss T", is dated 73-74. Looking at a closeup pic(ignore the specs of dust on the crystal), I can see the porous texture of tritium. The earlier years application(50's and 60's) of tritium and radium had a more puffier and porous look compared to later which was porous but not puffy, guess that was to do with improvements in applying the lume in later years.

again, sorry for being either inexact or mistyping in the first post about this watch, Kurt.

AFAIK these 7740 based Navitimers were introduced in 1972, first based on the "regular" movement with date at 5, then adding a version with the date at 6 (these do not appear yet in the 1972 brochure); according to the information I found these movements were only produced between 1972 and 1974 though Jean Michel dates the 7806 to 1967 ? Case production for my watch was late 74, no way to tell when it was assembled.

Many examples I found, both on Jean Michels site and other members´ watches posted here on the forum have similar lume, though I have no idea whether these are Tritium-based or Luminova.

Do we have any information when Breitling introduced Luminova, found nothing even remotely reliable, would be great to learn more ?

Took a pic of the space between the lugs, it does "scratch easily" with a toothpick or fingernail:




While playing with the camera I grabbed some pics of the OEM strap, had seen this on some pictures, but never held one in my hand; nice, but as I wrote a little stiff and brittle after that long time, clearly unworn when it arrived, tried to soften it to make it wearable, but to no avail:

Fred,

Thanks a lot for posting those pictures.

Before I comment on them I would like to say that it is very disappointing that only cruvon - our new member, have responded to this matter, as original / not original Tritium on all vintage watches have a very serious impact on the value of a vintage watch.

There are members in this Forum that has much more knowledge when it comes to vintage Breitling watches in general, then I do.

But I started this and I will be more then happy to end it as well.

Based on what I know about Tritium and Luminova I have no doubt what so ever that the Lume on your watch is Luminova, whether it is period correct or not, I simply don’t know, hopefully others will cave out and tell us.
Cruvon has made a point that definitely is worth listening to, as if the industry over the years has changed the “look” of Tritium, into the look of the Lume on your watch, then I’ll stand corrected.

My knowledge about the subject is 100% based on the 806 Navitimers and 809 Cosmonautes, and in the period that they was produced by Breitling only radium & Tritium looking the way I have explained, was being used.

Regarding the finish of the case, I was to the best of my knowledge wrong, the “fingernail / toothpick” test and the last picture you posted from the space between the lugs, tells me that the finish is the original one.

If it had been my watch I would have tried to dig deeper with respect to the Tritium / Luminova question, as there must be someone out there who knows much more about it then I do.

Please do not hesitate to get back to me if I can be at any further help.


Kurt B

Cheers Kurt, I guess everyone of us are getting coldfeet to dispute your findings, only kidding!;). I wouldn't have thought about minusing 45 years to get at 1966 as quickly as you did but thankfully it was only an error on Watchfred's part and so his watch is from a later period which is good for him.

Watchfred, your watch is beautiful and hopefully the lume originality question is sorted for you to be at ease:). Could we see a macro of the lume on your watch's dial and hands, are they porous?


I have heard(could be here-say) that a good test to check if is luminova is to expose the watch to say 1-2 mins facing a bright light source(pref halogen light) and see if it glows green in the dark, tritium will definetely not glow any longer(not sure if is possible for the tritium to glow very faintly in some cases though but luminova should glow brightly). Tritium is not strongly radioactive, it's half-life is 12.5 years so it would have stopped glowing quite a while ago. As you see in my Rolex pic above, some watches had T< 25 to indicate that only a limited radioctivity of less than 25mCI was put in pointing to the health conciousness setting in amongst users back then about radioctive content in watches I guess from the radium era. Wondering if Breitling too used any T<25 tritium and have such indication on the dial? .



That being said I have no knowledge about how Breitling ran their affairs with say putting later period parts(hands, dials) on earlier cases, some T dials with luminova possibly during transition etc. I do know some earlier Rolexes had such issues and some of those issues are very well documented by collectors, some can't be since possibly not many examples exist plus Rolex is notorious for not sharing information with collectors. I just speak from tips I picked up on Rolexes, would love to hear the views of the Breitling experts here.


The progression of lume was

Radium
Tritium
Luminova and
Superluminova

PS: Kurt, did all service replacement dials have a thinner font at the wing tips? That would be a great way to know if a watch has a service replacement dial. Also were service replacement dials suppiled by Breitling in a later period with radium/tritium or were with luminova/superluminova? And for those that remember the glow of their tritium dials back in the day, what colour did they glow in?


EDIT: Also read about a device called the UV luminova finder device that says when pointed for a couple of seconds at the dial lights up the dial markers
with a "apple green" shade of colour that is typical of luminova, while nothing happens if used with tritium.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... va&ct=clnk

Also some interesting discussion on tritium here
http://www.rolexforums.com/archive/inde ... 71234.html

I do wish that people wouldn't assume that the lack of public posting on luminesence in a thread that was supposed to be a gallery of Navitimer pictures meant that there was no reply. Some of us just choose to PM the affected party to avoid taking the thread off topic!

Any original tritium lume would be as good as dead now, the half life of tritium is 12 years. Therefore any watch that has a degree of visible lume has been relumed. I'm OK with that, and realistically SL is the modern product of choice. Would I do it on the 1 in 100 (or less) mint pieces - no, would I do it on a wearer - sur I would and it wouldn't bother me at all.



Now, wasn't this thread about Navitimer pictures?

True Roff but that would have a bearing on collectability on a watch being valued way less when being sold or extremely hard to sell especially if both the dial and hands have been relumed and that would affect the not so rare vintages more than the rarer ones. So I wouldn't relume a vintage watch even if was a practical thing to do or was a daily wearer and more importantly to keep it original.
Offcourse if was already done before or it needed to be done because the original lume got damaged there is nothing one can do but to relume, but it surely does affect collectability and value.
Personally, would I buy a watch with relumed hands? Though not desirable would still think twice based on rarity and price. What about one with a relumed dial or a service dial? A strict "no" irrespective of price and rarity!




Some more Navitimer eyecandy pictures please!:)

cruvon, as my other Navi has led us astray, here is an 806 from 1966
hands might be replacements ?

Beautiful watch Watchfred, there you go!! Lol, yupz, hope all is sorted with your 806. Btw why do you think this beauty could have incorrect hands or did you mean it could have had period correct replacement hands?

let us not lead things astray again, cruvon.
have reduced the pic width a little for easier viewing; hands have greenish lume, so I assume they are service replacements.

the "806" you refer to might be the 7806-S with the 7740 movement ? we will never know, as I have no long term history of this watch that I really trust,
seller claims he bought it like this more than a decade ago from a Breitling AD, case seems factory fresh, as does the dial and definitely the period correct strap. It is a rather rare watch, but many of the mint pieces I saw for sale, on Jean Michels or on this site had the same type of lume; as there is no Kurt B for 7806s we will probably never know.

Maybe we should discuss lume dating in a new thread, though.

Did you receive your first vintage Navi ? Post pics, please !

Oky, think have seen that colour diff between hands and dial lume in quite a few vintage Breitlings online and am not sure why too since with other brands the colour if varies, only varies by shades of the same colour, like in shades of yellow patina for example. But true I will start a new thread to discuss lumes. Beautiful watch though for sure.
Still some time for my Navi, will take delivery of it in a few months time.

Bump for some more pics guys!