The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Thanks for indulging us with the photos... lets us live vicariously

Here's Kurts description of the 806-36 and 809-36 after doing some reading on this beauty, assuming yours too has the Valjoux 7736 movement. The only thing different from examples there is Breitling and Geneve seem to be on top and Cosmonaute below the hands on the dial in Kurts article , in yours they are all above the hands, could be a variation not pictured in his article or a variation specific to the gold capped ones. Also is the double plane logo raised or imprinted on yours? The Stainless Steel ones in 67 dont seem to have red markers I think so looks like was different with the gold ones but am a newbie here and learning:)

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=42165

809-36

"was a Venus 178 modified to the 24-hour-display (Breitling also produced a very limited number of Cosmonaute watches using a modified Valjoux 7736; again, it was most likely due to a lack of Venus 178 movements. The reference nr. was 809-36 and they all had Breitling’s name & Doublewing logo on their dial). It was produced with two different subdial sizes.It wasn’t until 1967 that it earned itself the name Cosmonaute for good – a name that the watch has been known under ever si"


806-36

"From 1967, however, a limited number of Navitimers with Valjoux 7736 movements were produced concomitantly. The likely reason for this is that the success of the Navitimer caused Breilting to manufacture so large batches of Navitimers that occasional Venus 178 movement shortages occurred.That model’s reference no. is 806-36, it has large Subdials as well as the Breitling doublewing logo imprinted on its dial."

There’s no way the watch can be from 1967, as the Valjoux 7736/ 7740 family were not present before at the earliest in 1969.

Furthermore the subdial hands are wrong; they are the longer type which was used in Navitimers with larger subdials.

The paint on the dial is as far as I can see Luminova, and Breitling would never have used that so early; actually I don’t believe the Breitling family would have used it at all, as all other watch producers AFAIK, didn’t start using it before the late 80’s / early 90’s, Rolex f.exc. used Tritium until 1998.

IMO it’s one of those watches that have been put together from parts, leftovers from when Breitling went bankrupt.

I just checked seller’s webpage, and he has 3 more questionable Breitling watches for sale, all 3 of them with Luminova on the markers. His “Brand new old stock 1968 steel Breitling Navitimer” definitely has a wrong Twin Plane logo as well.

Recently (over the past “some “years) more and more questionable Breitling watches like those ones have shown up, all of them seems to origin from Germany, just like his 4 ones does.

I admit being wrong in my article, where I state “From 1967, however, a limited number of Navitimers with Valjoux 7736 movements were produced concomitantly”, but it wasn’t until recently when I worked on my publication in The British Horological Journal, that it came clear to me that there was no Valjoux 7736/40 movement before at the earliest 1969, and it will of course be corrected.


/ Kurt B
http://www.kurt-b.com

Ouch Kurt, that surely hurt even though not my watch considering it looked such a beauty. The lume on the hands and dial looked so perfect and even matched perfectly(which I don't see match in most Breitling 806-809 vintages) but if that's "luminova" and not "tritium" it's surely wrong for 1967. I guess the OP can confirm that by shining a light source to the dial and checking if the plots glow in the dark. In hindsight, I wouldn't have guessed about the wrong sub dial hands(a NOS watch with small dials surely shouldn't have had them) and the wrong year for the 7736 movement either or the other watches on the sellers website being wrong, too many pitfalls in the vintage game:(.

OP, sorry to hear this about your beauty, you surely need to take into consideration the advice above from Kurt regarding the authenticity of the watch unless there is a different and valid technical viewpoint from someone else about it's originality. The watch is very beautiful but from a vintage collectors perspective is not collectible as a NOS 809 from 1967 based on Kurts explanation and you will have to decide if you want to keep it for beauty's sake or would also want it to be all correct i.e collectible.
Unfortunately there are known sellers (a very popular German seller mentioned here time and again is a star repeat offender) peddling vintages to the unwary buyer or fellow dealers claiming their frankens are all original all to make a quick buck and unless you reverify with experts in the know before buying, it's impossible for the newbie to tell and is usually too late.
Some of these fakers are so good that they can escape the keenest of eyes and experts at times so the forum is still the best place to verify them since you have a group of the best minds out there at work. Breitling historically not having their own movements becomes quite easy for some sellers to put togather watches not only with Breitling parts from different eras but sometimes even with parts from other brands and claim them as a valid Breitling reference.
Do they have a returns policy?

Well said cruvon. I read Kurt's post yesterday and the only reply I could think of was 'ouch' and do I waited for someone else to reply.

With Kurt's comments noted, it still is a beautiful watch to look at

More references to a Valjoux 7736 stating are from 1969 onwards


http://www.ranfft.de/cgi-bin/bidfun-db. ... ljoux_7736


.
http://www.watchfreeks.com/view_topic.p ... rum_id=129

Kurt, another watch on here with the same dial layout as OP's though in stainless steel, claiming to be a 1967 V7736 (serial 1163967). The lume surely looks relumed and not sure about the originality of the case too! The sub dial hands seem to be correct in this one though. It even has the "Breitling Geneve Cosmonaute" toagther above the hands like the OP's one.
http://www.******.com/blog/2010/4/12/ ... er-sp.html
it's here again
http://forums.timezone.com/index.php?t= ... 1594&rid=0

Regarding the OP watch, at a closer look on a monitor - and not on the miniscule iphone screen - there seems little doubt this dial is not from the late 60s. On the other hand we just should not assume a watch was completed by Breitling in the year the case was manufactured, we see many, many examples of mid 1940s watches that have apparently been finished by Breitling in the mid 1950s; the -36 inscription was added on the finished stock cases, so we could (and I assume this is what led Kurt to the original 1967 claim for the 806-36) see to totally correct 806-36 with cases dated to 1967, containing movements that were launched only in 1969.

Kurt, do you have documented examples of early 1970s 806-36 or are these all marked 806-E ? J

Cheers Fred, could you please share with us any addtional info you noticed on enlarging the dial pics?

About the assumption on the case I cant understand how they could even remotely have a 806-36 case in 1967 for the 77"36" movement that wasn't released by Valjoux till 1969. I can understand if it was the other way round( 806 case on a 7736 movement watch) and even then there would need to be quite a few examples to document that scenario so as to be considered collectible.

Yeah, I think Kurt's wrong about the 809-36. Here's one I'm negotiating on also from 1967.

There are 809-36s in 67 cases, absolutely no doubt about that. Of course we have no idea when Breitling cased them up, but from a case numbering standpoint 67 isn't an issue.

San, afaik Venus 178 and Valjoux 7736 are "drop in replacements", so Breitling could (and apparently did, all the 806-36 examples I remember had that "homemade" -36 addition in a different font) just add the marking to existing V178 cases.

edit: Paul´s pic is another example, definitely a 1967 case, but the -36 was probably added by Breitling years later, there seems no doubt the Valjoux 7736 was not available in 1967.

Seems to be entirely possible that they reused the cases but they will be forever seen as 1967 809-36's. We seem to be discovering more of these early examples of reusing cases all the time. Didn't this also appear to be the case with the first Navitimer's production dates?

Could we please see some dial pics of that watch?

Now that scenario is entirely possible and if we can document quite a few 806s and 809s than that would surely help in documenting this theory. From a collector viewpoint I would be more inclined to collect a 1969 806-36 or 809-36 in coinciding with the first manufacture year of the Valjoux 7736 till the 67 theory is generally accepted. These quirks can be found in early 60s Rolex 5512/5513s too but have been very well documented by collectors so they don't hesitate in collecting them any more though they sure did avoid them before.

According to a source I have (which I have all reasons to believe) the 806-E was an aftermarket case, I hold one in my hand as I'm typing, and it is 1mm higher then a "normal" 806 case, case back is also thicker.

/ Kurt B