The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I was wondering what are your thoughts on quartz vintage? In your opinion does it have or will have a place in your collection?

Thanks,

As defined for this forum the quartz watches (with a couple of exceptions) don't really qualify as vintage pieces. Generally in the vintage marketplace items over 25 years old usually are considered vintage by most collectors. With that in mind, I think the very earliest quartz pieces, after Breitling was bought by Sicura, are definitely collectable but very hard to find. Here are a couple of examples from the 1980s.

Quartz doesn't do it for me on an emotional level, but from a practical standpoint my issue is always that the early quartz movements are both obsolete and unserviceable. As Paul has demonstrated plenty of times donor pieces are generally still readily available at low prices, but those movements are just as old and sooner or later these pieces are just going to become paperweights.

I think you'd be surprised how many of these old quartz movements are still available new. ESA number changed to an ETA number and they're pretty easy to find for around $25-$50 each. At that price they don't cost hundreds of dollars to overhaul as does a mechanical piece. Since I don't wear a watch around the house it's much easier to grab and go with a quartz than to wind and set a mechanical watch when I need a timepiece. Just bought this one this weekend with that in mind. Although the Aerospace is my favorite choice as a daily wearer I thought I'd give the Colt a try.

I must admit i like that first one you posted Paul, what is that ?

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

After Sicura bought Breitling there seemed to have been a flurry of unusual offerings, probably to have something to offer as the new breitling company. This model was probably acquired from Doxa since it's almost identical to the early Doxa 300 including the bracelet. I have only ever seen two of these Breitling's.

[quote="vintage"]As defined for this forum the quartz watches (with a couple of exceptions) don't really qualify as vintage pieces. Generally in the vintage marketplace items over 25 years old usually are considered vintage by most collectors. With that in mind, I think the very earliest quartz pieces, after Breitling was bought by Sicura, are definitely collectable but very hard to find. Here are a couple of examples from the 1980s."



Your first pictured Breitling is nice. This is something I would never of thought it was real. I would have thought it was a Doxa with a Breitling dial placed on it (a franken). You never know, I've learned something new and now I know these models exists.

Would something like the Navitimer Quartz 2300 be a respectable member of a primarily mechanical watch collection? I'm not looking at getting one but amused the thought of adding quartz Breitlings to my collecting. I know there's different of opinions and some collectors finds quartz watches to be not desirable.

I think, the early Quartz watches will be searched collectibles in the future. Especially the Breitling 9106, 9406, 9416 are rare opportunities. In the time of their production they were by far too expensive in comparison to other brands and Breitling has sold only a very few pieces. The selling ratio today between a 806 and a 9406 is 50 or maybe 500:1 on ebay, so you can see, how rare they are.

You have to think, that LED and LCD was a revolution in the 70ies like a iPhone or maybe the first macintosh a few years ago. It was impressive for the people in this period (like me, I was 10/15 years old).
Especially because the replacement movements are (in most cases) not repairable makes them desirable if you got a working one.

Cal_11

I forgot to mention that the other watch I posted above (French Air Force emblem) was probably originated from Scubapro about the same time since they also did a couple of Breitling models during the early 1980's.