The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Just picked up this 808 rather inexpensively and wondered if any of these left the factory with unsigned crowns like mine...Was going to simply overhaul the movement,clean up the case and buff the crystal but if the crown is not right I'll search for one.

welcome to the forum & congrats on the acquisition, nice Gen 2 piece. 808s had signed crowns, I'll check tomorrow and give you the correct size to look for or somebody else might chime in before this.

I have a few spares , let me know the size and i can check

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

Nice!!!!!! And welcome.

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"A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure."

Thanks guys,thought I'd share how this all started.... with a watch that was on my fathers desk when I was little. I could freely mess with this watch as he never wore it due to most of it's strap missing. I remember with great detail the pushers and snapping the red second hand back at will. Thirty years later it hit me that I should inquire about the watch with my dad and lo and behold to my surprise it was still in the desk drawer. He got it in my hands and told me it's story. His father (my grandfather) had a brother who took care of horses when they were little and the owner of the horses gifted the brother this watch, engraved on the caseback with his initials. My grandfather sees it and says "I'll give you $50 bucks for it." Somehow it made its way to rest in that desk and then to me. Dated it using the serial number table on this forum and it's a 769 from 1944. Many thanks for providing this forum for us who have soft spots for these pieces.

Well, with a story and provenance like that i will certainly help out if i can

P.s if youre going to polish the plexi on the watch , try 'polywatch' , its a polishing compound for plexi

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

Thanks for the reply. Went back and proofed my last entry and realized why it was unclear. That original desk piece that found it's way back to me a few years ago introduced me to (and really hooked me on) mechanical watches. That piece is a 769, a real knockout. I'll post a pic tomorrow from my studio. It was this forum that got me up to speed on more of them and so I was pretty jazzed when this 808 popped into the picture a few days ago. The 808 was brought into a friends jewelry studio, owner was looking to sell. Like me, it was his grandfathers watch (seeing a theme here...) except he wasn't so interested in it. I had no choice but to scoop it up. Looking forward to more reading.Cheers, Glenn

Glenn, you were clear enough; nice provenance on both pieces & both Chronomat 769 and the later 808 are beautiful icons; congrats.

The ref. 808 crown has a diameter of 5.9mm and is 2.5mm thick; will not be too easy to find, but 6.00mm/3mm crowns are typically available and will be a decent fit; a crown bigger than that wouldn't fit nicely.

So I imagine I'd be better off looking for an appropriate size crown already on it's stem rather than hope the threads on my 808's stem are a match. I wouldn't be doing the work myself, have a watchguy here in Richmond,Va.
After the crown ,I will be looking for a buckle if anyone is willing to come off of one.