The Breitling Watch Blog

Previously, we talked about how Bear Grylls wears a Breitling Emergency. Well, turns out Bear is quite the watch enthusiast and now has another watch brand to promote, and that brand is Bremont. A new company out of the UK, Bremont focuses on Aviation watches built to highly exacting standards.

The cases are hardened to 2000 vickers, the hardest of any production watch on the market. Production is limited 1000 of each model, and the English brothers that head the company, Nick and Giles English (pun intended) are aviators themselves, each watch a COSC certified chronometre.

Check ’em out:
http://www.bremont.com

These little watch rotor cufflinks are a great little gift for the WIS in your family, or just a treat to yourself. If only they were swiss made, that would be perfect, but Invicta makes a nice watch for a fair price, and these cufflinks are certainly affordable!

At anywhere from $75-110US or so online, they make a great stocking stuffer for the fellow WIS. I picked up a pair for my father, and hope he’ll like them. I might pick up a pair for myself if they turn out to be nice. He’s my guinea pig for now though!

With the jeweled face, and real working rotor these are definately a cool gift.

The second thing I always look for when I am browsing watches online is the diameter of the watch. The first is to see if I like the design. Nowadays I don’t really take notice of anything under 42mm, if it’s over 46mm, that’s the best!

Thing is, not all 48mm watches are created equally. I’m going to compare two 48mm watches watches just to show you. Actually one is a 48.7mm, and the other is a 48.4mm watch. The two watches are the Breitling for Bentley Motors and Breitling Super Avenger, respectively. The Super Avenger is typically considered the largest watch in the Breitling Repetoire, however, I feel that the Flying B might be, though I do not own one to compare with… its a bit pricey for me! So I’ll have to compare some Super Avengers with the Bentley Motors.

As a side note, I should say that lighter dials also present a larger wrist presence than dark dials typically. So if you want the watch to appear bigger, go light!

Here is a side by side of the two for you to take a look at, notice that the size is quite similar. The depth of the Super Avenger gives it a look of thickness. It is, in fact thicker:

The Super Avenger is 18.6mm, and the Motors is 15.2mm. Quite a difference, and the difference gives both a very different look and feel on the wrist. The Super Avenger is much more noticeable and less comfortable to me.

As you see in the above picture, the Super Avenger (on the left) is much thicker. 3.4mm makes quite the difference on the wrist, and my first day wearing it I had to remove it from my wrist several times during the day simply because it wasn’t very comfortable. This was not the case with the Breitling for Bently Motors.

I’ll leave you with a couple of wrist shots, on my small 6.75″ wrist. So you guys get an idea of what either watch looks like on, and which you may prefer and other factors to consider besides diameter!

Here is the Breitling for Bentley Motors:

And here is the Super Avenger (this time in white):

Notice the Lug-to-Lug is much longer on the Super Avenger… that is a stat that many watches don’t give you, but can make a difference. Omega’s in general tend to have a very long lug-to-lug length. Hope you enjoyed the article!

Here’s a video analysis of a fake Breitling Chronomat Evolution that I did. This is a very convincing fake Chronomat Evolution. I tried to go over the inconsistancies of the fake, but it is very convincing. Without a fair bit of time spent with a real one most people would get duped by this copy.

I probably should have done a side by side of a real one just to compare but I hadn’t thought of it, but I no longer have this fake Breitling Chronomat Evo in my posession. Hope this helps, guys!

IWC Watches have always held a special place for me… they have that men’s no-nonsense thing going on, and really make a nice, simple functional watch. They are the only company that is a manufacture and also makes many watches that suit my personal style. However, I do not own any of them. Why? Because they are simply too small.

I draw the line at 42mm. I do not buy any watches smaller than 42mm anymore simply because I won’t wear them. I still have some, such as my Navitimer and Chronomat that are under 42mm, and I wear the Navi, but not the Chronomat. IWC’s watches at their largest were 43mm with the Ingenieur, and that just simply did not cut it. I believe their Aquatimer Cousteau edition also was a bit larger like 44mm or something, but did not fancy paying the premium for it.

I’ve always wanted an IWC with their Manufacture movement, which is why I liked the 42mm Portuguese with the seven day power reserve. The Ref 5001. Caliber 50010 IWC movement.

Enter the IWC Big Ingenieur
A 45.5mm Ingenieur with a power reserve indicator. Utilizing a Calibre 51112 Movement also with a seven day power reserve! Wow. My dream watch.

Very nice. Utilizing the IWC Pellaton winding system, and … in case you missed it.. 7 day power reserve! This is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) automatic movements in production. Watch comes on Rubber or Crocodile, and not stainless in this size unfortunately.

I might have to settle for the new 44mm Ingenieur Automatic on steel, but only if they add a Chronograph to it. It looks a bit too plain without any subdials. The 44mm Ingenieur does not have the seven day movement, unfortunately!

Price on the Big Ingenieur is around $11,000.

Oh well… I guess you can’t have it all, right?