The Breitling Watch Blog

This is to supplement the Video Review that I posted earlier.

While I recently sold this watch as it wasn’t getting any wrist time, I still loved the way it looked and for a 38mm watch, it received a surprisely large amount of compliments. The intricate dial is very captivating, and my photographs likely don’t do it justice. The Telemetre markings on the dial and subtle circularing patterning on the subdials give the watch that rare charm that some watches just seem to have.

As you can see, the watch has a curved sapphire crystal with AR coating. The hour and minute hands are filled with SuperLuminova, and glow just enough to read at night. The fixed bezel is on the thinner side, which gives the watch a decent presence due to the dial sizing and comes mounted on a Genuine Crocodile strap and signed Tang buckle.

The movement is an ETA 2894-2, with a chronograph and date at 4:30, which is nice and discreet on the dial.

The Screwdown crown is signed with the 5 ball bearing Eterna logo, and the pushers are a classic piston style. The case is a three-piece fully polished one, with 18mm lugs.

Caseback is brushed, with standard Eterna engravings and markings indicating the 30m water resistance, sapphire crystal and Swiss pedigree.

Here’s the Eterna Cambridge strapped on my 6.75″ wrist. Not too shabby. It actually wears pretty good for 38mm on the OEM strap, and looks even better on a Bund Pilot strap, which is what I wore the watch on the majority of the time I owned it.

Just posted a Youtube video of my Eterna Cambridge Pulsometer Automatic Chronograph watch. I haven’t had a chance to do a write-up on this beautiful little watch, but will probably put one up one of these days. This is one of my favourite Eternas, and has one of those dials that everyone comments on when they see it. Its a bit on the small size at 38mm, but wears pretty good when mounted on a Di-Modell Chronissimo or something like that. Hope you guys enjoy the review!

One of the more later Eterna pieces I picked up is this beautiful Eterna Soleure Moonphase Monopusher Chrono. Its probably my favourite Eterna watch that they have made, and has such a unique way of presenting the subdials. The movement runs on the rock solid Valjoux 7751 with the 12hr Chrono counter removed.

As you can see, the dial has a very clean appearance especially without the 12hour subdial. The 7751 positions the date on the outer ring via a pointer-date hand. Day and Month are both indicated at the 12 o’clock subdial. Month and date are both adjusted via the first crown position, with the month changing when the date does a full rotation. Day of the week is changed via a recessed pusher at the 10 o’clock position.

The brushed sunburst style dial looks amazing in my opinion. Quite often, brushed sunburst patterns can look cheap or unfinished, like Doxa’s sometimes do (no offense Doxa, I do love your watches). Eterna does a great job with this one, and it looks all class, and the applied dots on Eterna’s logo look fantastic. No lume whatsoever on this dial, it is a dress watch. Great blued Chronograph hands complete the package and the patterned subdials offer nice contrast against the dial.

The stainless steel watch case measures a healthy 42mm, but wears very large in my opinion. It seems to wear more like 43-44mm, possibly due to the thin bezel and large face. I just can’t get enough of the dial on this watch, they did such a fantastic job!

As you can see, this is a monopusher chronograph which means the same Pusher starts, stops and resets the chronograph mechanism. This is a very neat and nice complication/feature, but it does have one limitation: You can’t stop the chronograph and then start it again, your only option would be to reset it.

The crown has the notched edges with the 5 round notches representing the Eterna Ball Bearing logo.. I’ve always liked the way they designed the crown on these models.

Beautiful understated back. Not too much going on, but a beautiful fully polished back with plenty of room for engraving if you so wish. Caseback is held on by only 4 screws on this model, which is good for 50m of water resistance. Not too shabby.

The single-fold deployant is very nicely crafted on the Soleure Moonphase Monopusher, featuring double push-button release and a very large clasp. The Crocodile flank strap is also very well made and nice and wide, suiting the extra thickness of the watch head nicely. The lugs on this one are also slightly curved, a nice extra touch of class.

There it is, sitting happily on my wrist. Currently my favourite Eterna, though it probably still doesn’t get as much wrist time as it should. Time to get it out!

Two new Eterna’s to hit the street… which are interesting since these seem to harken back to their glory days rather than the newer direction that brand had been taking. Those guys over at Eterna can’t seem to make up their mind, similar to Zenith. But maybe its just because these are “Heritage” models.

I was digging the new Eterna In-House movements, and now we’re back to ETA. I understand that Eterna created ETA, but still.

Eterna Heritage Pulsometer Automatic Chronograph
Limited Edition of 1,942

Diameter: 42mm
Thickness: 13mm
Sapphire Crystal
50m Water Resistance
Movement: ETA 2894-2
MSRP: 3,950 CHF

Eterna Heritage Super Kon Tiki Diver
Limited Edition of 1,973
Diameter: 44mm
Thickness: 14mm
Sapphire Crystal
200m Water Resistance
Movements: ETA 2824-2
MSRP: 2,950 CHF

One of the new models from Basel that I am excited about is the Eterna Madison 8 Days Spherodrive. I have had a soft spot for Eterna watches for a long time, and my small collection of Eternas is evidence of that. I have been impressed with the companies creation of new in-house movements (They did create ETA, after all), and have used their signature ball bearing innovation to make the Spherodrive.

The new Eterna Madision 8 Days Spherodrive uses their handwound caliber 3510, and the watch measures 53mm x 38mm, a very healthy size. Its also a beautiful dial and movement, with all screws and screw holes and edges beveled from what it looks like.