The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Yesterday I thalk by phone Breitling Italy. They asked me to send some pictures of my Chronomat, to show to maison in switzerland.

Done

Contacting the store that sold it to me, they told me that the watch in question has been sold by a pilot, but for obvious reasons of privacy can not reveal the identity.

It therefore makes more concrete the hypothesis that this was a piece produced for a non commercial pourpose.

Sorry, I don't follow that logic. Breitling have made hundreds of limited editions for special interest groups - squadrons for example, that were never offered through traditional retail channels. They all had numbers on the back, by definition that's what makes them limited.

It is also incomprehensible that Breitling would issue a limited edition of 4,000 and then issue more, identical watches without a serial number, by definition that would mean that it wasn't a run of 4,000.

There's no magic here, if the case was never stamped then the explanation will be a simple one, likely a production error.

Thanks for your opinion Roff.
I think An error of production is another probable hypothesis
Is most important for me support of the forum in my survey.

However not even make sense that the seller did not tell me the truth

I will keep you updated on the developments

In regards to it being a prototype , I had a watch and a one the huit hours clocks that were prototypes , and they actually had that very word quite crudely stamped on them .


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Limited editions that get replacement backs get them without the sequence numbers. Might have been replaced at some time.

That's a very good point, the case back could easily have been replaced at some time.

That's another (and highly likely) option.

_________________
Driver8

Site Moderator

those pictures seem to me like they show that they have been polished off. You can see "scrapes" sorry if I wasn't clear, I meant it looked like it was polished... If my opinion differs from yours I guess it doesn't matter

Every opinion matters. It maybe a replacement or could be machined off. It's in such a place that it could be achieved but it's a lot of work to getting it right.

It's unlikely that the engraving is 1mm even if LE get a deeper impression. I know what 1mm looks like and from these pics it's about 0.3 - 0,4mm at best. The inset on the centre of the case maybe a little closer but even the raised text in that part would be scrapping to be 0.5mm. So I still opt for machining off as that would be doable. Well that's my opinion, but I am probably wrong.

_________________
Jim

"You have Control".

Yes but....why?
The general conditions of the watch is mint.
In any other side of the watch is not possible to see evidence of damage or consumption that would justify the replacement of a caseback
And...if Breitling (or official assistance) knew the original s.n. in the hypotetic old case back, whi them didn't engraved new caseback with original s.n. after replacement? Why the motherhouse tolerates an l.e. watches goes around the world without serial number???

An serious company would, not allow it.
IMHO

Every opinion matters.
But where I Can see "scrapes"?

I think we can all try to second-guess reasons for this until the cows come home, and unless Breitling can come up with a definitive answer, then I don't think you're ever going to know exactly why.

To summarise, it likely one of 3 things -

1. It's been polished out by a grey market supplier in an effort to protect the supplying AD. However as discussed the caseback would likely show signs as a lot of metal would need to be removed as the LE number is deeply stamped.
2. The caseback stamping was missed at the factory. As I stated earlier in this thread, things like that could happen as each LE number is unique and must therefore be indvidually done.
3. The caseback has been replaced. Maybe the caseback thread on the original was damaged during a service.... who knows?

If you really want a definitive answer I think that all you can do is send the watch in to Breitling and see what they say.

_________________
Driver8

Site Moderator

Yeah, this is starting to get a bit silly. We know the watch is 20 years old and has previous owners and yet condition is good so it has obviously had case refinishing, probably during a full service. We know that Breitling don't stamp replacement LE casebacks, whether anyone thinks they should or not is irrelevant.

There's an old English saying that may not translate into Italian very well that says "if you hear hooves think horses not zebras". In other words the most likely explanation is very likely the real one. In this case, one of the explanations that Driver8 summarized. That's not particularly interesting, and it does nothing to increase the value of the piece (which I suspect is the hope), but it's very likely the truth no matter how much more speculation occurs.