The Breitling Watch Source Forums

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810 = Toptime = Venus178
815 = LongPlaying = Valjoux R7736

Another major difference between 810 Top Time and 815 Long Playing is the Hour and Minute hands. Top time hands have a stripe in the middle and a cone-shape top, while 815 Long Playing hands have no striped hands with flat top.
Plus the sweep second hand on 815 is thicker.

Ok thanks everyone. All though a good initiative and helpful resource from the Springbar, the fact that the 815 is in the Top Time overview needs updating. And having the 810 in the Breitling catalog with “Long Playing” above it created a bit of confusion for me. I am going to stick with the ref numbers, that seems the best way, untill somebody create’s the definitive Toptime guide. Which i would like to help with. So any volunteers for a Toptime cataloging project?


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Long Playing was referred to the newly developed Mainspring in the late 60's, after taking over of Venus by Valjoux. This new Mainspring was used in the latest batch of Venus 178 in Top Time 810 3-register-watches. The catalog from 1969 shows the later model of 810 Top Time "Long PLaying". When they ran out of all the Venus 178 in 1970's, Valjoux came up with the 7736. And Breitling called the new model 815 and because it had the new mainspring, it was called "LONG PLAYING". For that see the catalog from the 70's, where there is no more reference to 810 but only 815.

And in order to be able to differentiate between 810 and 815, due to the new movement, Breitling removed the Top Time from the dial AND USED THE NEW HANDS. You only need to look at the FACE of the watch to tell if it is a 810 Top Time or 815 Long Playing. And as mentioned above, there were a few last 810 Top Time, which got the long playing mainspring, however, if one sent the older version of 810 for service, they got the new long playing mainspring as part of the service, anyway. If your 810 keeps power for about two days, than it has the long playing mainspring.

There were also a third version of hands on 810, which looked like sword to match the hour markers on the dial. They weren't used on 815. So the hands are the biggest indicators of model numbers.

Thank you to all who have answered and provided such rich information.

can you post an example of the hands you are referring to, know of a third type of hands, but these were used on the 824 24h variation only, afaik?

Ok thanks that is very helpful and logical, very good information, it makes sense now. I am not sure if this info was all ready on the forum? I would like to create a bit more of a structured resource so it is more accessible.


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Yes please that would be great to see.


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Fred, Yes, according to your 1969 catalog, the striped hands go to 810 and the sword hands go to 824, but the sword hands were also used for ref 200x models. Actually, the 1969 catalog shows them side by side. 2002.3 white dial has sword hands and 2002.3 black dial has striped hands.

I believe first hands were the sword hands and then came the striped hands. I did some research and found an article from Frattello on 810, which shows the sword hands were the first version and striped hands were for MK2.

https://www.fratellowatches.com/tbt-bre ... -time-810/

I am a hand guy and have sold varieties of Breitling hands. So I always look at the hands first. All that said, I might be wrong, I wouldn't die for my beliefs. There are not enough catalogs around to check and there are over one hundred 810 watches in the search result, which have either striped hands or sword hands.

But FACT is that none of these hands (striped or sword) should be on 815.

OK, if you are going to publish this, then I give you a little more and technical info. I am hobby watchmaker and like to understand things from ground up.

Actually the reason for Long Playing deal is that Venus 178 with 3 registers used the same mainspring as for example Venus 188 with 2 registers. More registers means, more usage of reserve power and so 35% more expensive watch needed more winding than the cheaper one. Therefore to save face, they developed a new mainspring a bit more efficient so it would last longer. However, a short time later they ran out of all Venus 178. The new 7736 got the new technology and because it was a big deal, they called the new model 815 "Long Playing".

There is another Breitling model 820, which uses Valjoux 7736 and is also called Long Playing.

Later Valjoux 7740 came with 3 registers and it is a variation of (Buren) Chrono-Matic Caliber 12 with 2 registers. And so some models with Valjoux 7740 like reference 7103 and 7104 were also called "LONG PLAYING". These watches are modular. meaning, there is the core watch part and there is case top. Apparently there was a commercial showing guys wearing these watches in a case top with sporty strap in the morning doing sport and swap the case top with a leather strap and went out for dinning. So two case tops and one main module. Whether the story is true? I don't know, but it could have been a good marketing thing for both features: 1. keep long time and 2. is flexible.

Cheers,
Dj

Hi DJ, thanks very much. That is really great additional info. I knew about the switch from Venus to Valjoux, so it is very good to have technical background. It is really very good to have somebody contributing on the technical aspects. A little bit of original topic, I know of several other Breitlings that both used the Venus and the Valjoux. The 814 and the 7656 both three reg chronos. Don’t know if any of these two were considered nicknamed long playing. K


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haven’t seen a Copilot Toptime 7656 with a Venus 178 ?
the one’s I’ve seen in that configuration used 1765-marked cases.

814 was one of the very early watches in the series going back to 1965-1966 and it was sold for a few years before they made the long playing mainspring. Therefore, to avoid confusion, they didn't call 814 a long playing after installing the new mainspring in early 70's and later. By the way, I had never seen a 814 with a Valjoux 7736 until your post recently. Elgin used the 3 register dial from 814 with Valjoux 7736 but I wasn't aware of Breitling doing that.

this is how I understand it

7656 Top Time = Valjoux 7736
1765 Top Time = Venus 178
1765/36 Top Time = Valjoux 7736

the one with the red hand is the V178 version of the 1765 , the one with the white hand is the R7736 version

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