The Breitling Watch Source Forums

As Bill suggested I opened a seperate thread

Bill voiced some concerns about the 'Navitimer' print on the dial so I made some close up pics with the movement out of the case , I hope these are clear and close up enough to come to a conclusion whether or not the Navitimer print is original or done by a 3rd party and thus 'faked' the Navitimer

interested in hearing all opinions and I am also interested in seeing other watches , I think Paul has/had one and by the looks of it cal_11 also has one ?

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"I spent most of my money on Booze, Breitling and Boats. The rest I wasted" - mostly Elmore Leonard

this is the watch in question

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"I spent most of my money on Booze, Breitling and Boats. The rest I wasted" - mostly Elmore Leonard

Here's the one from Alan's article (scroll all the way down)

http://forums.watchuseek.com/f39/breitl ... 25057.html

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"I spent most of my money on Booze, Breitling and Boats. The rest I wasted" - mostly Elmore Leonard

Intrigued, but can't offer an opinion either way.

I've got a little bit of experience with these, and they are odd pieces - why would this watch have Navitimer on the dial? Additionally, the printing of Navitimer does look a little different to the 21 Jewels above it as can be seen by Dracha's exceptional photos. However, that difference seems to me to be nothing more than the fact that the lighter colour shows the texture of the dial through it more so than the black text does. I have seen no evidence of the Navitimer being added later, and there are too many consistent examples around for it to be wrong (in my mind).

I have no idea why these are branded Navitimer, but they appear to me to be correct, and if the word was something different then we would likely all accept them??

thanks, if anyone is interested , taken with a standard Canon SLR w/ great 100mm Macro lens

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"I spent most of my money on Booze, Breitling and Boats. The rest I wasted" - mostly Elmore Leonard

which Macro Lens, Renè ?

I am not really on the fence with this one, though it is truly a surprising piece and will always remain an enigma - why the Navitimer branding, why does it not appear in any ads our catalogs - we are talking about the mid-50s here, the heydays of Breitling's success; hundreds of ads in all relevant media around the world, many catalogs, many Basel fairs, but no mention of the 3-hand navitimer.

BUT: all these seem to come from one production run, dials are good and consitent quality, using the same (slightly strange) script Navitimer logo never seen before or after. Why would a faker do this - and not at least use them same logo Breitling has been using on their Navi line ??? The faker would probably even have added AOPA .....

My one is by far not so nice (except the movement), it's a thing for a restoring-project, maybe. Figerprints on the dial, a crack on the lugs. I will shoot photos after my holidays.

Interesting: Maybe these are the authentic crowns. My one looks similar and has also no "B".

here you go
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tokina/100mm-f28.htm

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"I spent most of my money on Booze, Breitling and Boats. The rest I wasted" - mostly Elmore Leonard

thx; am selling my D800 and am back to my old Canon, so this sounds like a great choice.

One answer could for these watches could be that they were "Willy Specials" as it were. Given out as gifts or as company incentives for high sales and the like. This would answer as to why it was not advertised to the public as it was an inside promotion per se. It would be great to find an old employee of the company to pick their brain but our course age has taken most if not all.

I think we would all be happy to have our hands on Rene's and Paul's watches. They are the real deal, but do pose some questions. I'll start by making lists.

Here are the things that are certain (or mostly certain):

1. These appear to be real Breitling watches from 1956 or so. The movement and case markings are all correct, but I'm not seeing a case reference number. Is it "66 26"?
2. The script "Navitimer" with the scrolly, loopy italicized font is consistent with other models in the mid-1950s, like "Premier" and "Sprint." [See the stylized "Premier" in the 1958 ad shown on Richter page 119.]
3. Richter shows us that "Navitimer" was trademarked on 9 March 1955 (page 27), so it was their mark to do with what they wished.
4. We shouldn't be too troubled by the lack of catalog or advertising copy on these, since 1956 is a dark period in our resources, which I think jump from some 1952 catalog pages to the few and difficult to read 1959 catalog pages in the The Book.

Here are some of the anomalous issues that we can toy with:

1. It seems odd to be marketing the Navitimer as a navigation tool at the same time as putting it on the dial of a dressy watch not at all suited to navigation. [Note the absence of a minute chapter.]
2. The prominent ad for Breitling featuring the Unitime, Navitimer, and Chronomat (Richter page 37) features a time-only watch, which is a 66 26 with markers different than on Rene's and Paul's examples. [See the "Navitimer" 66 26 example below.] That ad first appeared in the June 1957 Swiss Horological Journal article when the Navitimer was first featured. So maybe the "Navitimer" was added before they settled on a marketing strategy in 1957?
3. The italicized script fonts in that ad are close, but different than on the time-only watch, but that should not be a too prominent issue.
4. It does just seem design-wrong to me to have "21 Jewels" above "Navitimer" on the dial, but that is also a nit-noid irritation reserved for troubled minds like mine.
5. I think the dial with the - I'm going to call them "fan" style markers - are otherwise seen on the Unidates 63 26 and 64 26, but the latter is a snapback and not screwback and I've only seen a gold-plate example.
6. The examples with the "fan" markers do seem to have "Navitimer" in a different color, as if it was faded black, formerly red, or just different. I don't know what to make of that.

I've just added a bundle of images for the sake of discussion. [I miss Tom, who was really good at finding images for examples.] It's a shame we don't have someone to ask "just what were you thinking?", but these have been around a long time (note Richter was published in 1995) and we would have an answer by now. If I had one, I'd keep it, restore it, wear it, and enjoy it as part of my collection (although I'd be enjoying chronographs a lot more). On a more general note, on some of the issues we ponder - like straps, bracelets, boxes, and dials - wonder whether retailers had quite a bit of freedom to provide their own materials to the retail product. But, that is a bigger and separate question for another thread.

Unidate 63-26 with similar dial: http://www.ricardo.ch/kaufen/uhren-und- ... 710634682/

Unidate 64-26 with similar dial from Breitling source reference gallery: http://www.breitlingsource.com/watch_de ... ed_67.html

66-26 Navitimers:



June 1957 SHJ ad:

I think maybe that when they initially started using the Navitimer name it was more leaning towards a line of watches instead of a certain individual watch. Perhaps Breitling didn't have a clear picture of what the end product was going to be at that time. Obviously they were trying to move into the early aerospace nomenclature and striving to direct their marketing towards a more aviation theme. It looks like to me they changed their minds quickly and dropped this style Navitimer and opted to start the Transocean line of watches which were more upmarket and were offered in stainless, gold capped, and 18k as a more suitable offering, maybe something more upscale than a Unitime. These watches were also starting to be sold around the same timeframe so perhaps would have been the logical replacement.

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"I spent most of my money on Booze, Breitling and Boats. The rest I wasted" - mostly Elmore Leonard