The Breitling Watch Blog

A new watch classifieds site is now open, dedicated to Canadians. This makes it easier for Canadians to connect with other Canadians to buy sell and trade watches, without the hassles of customs and taxes and import duties.

This is a brand new site and will need your support to keep it going! Please visit and start listing your watches for sale/trade if you are Canadian!

How many Chronometers were certified in 2006? According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, the COSC certifications added up to 1,300,140 Chronometers.

The leaders of the pack still remain the same with Rolex, Omega followed by Breitling. Here is a complete list of all the companies with more than 1000:

Rolex (710,752)
Omega (257,187)
Breitling (182,223)
Panerai (46,454)
Chopard (23,462)
Ulysse Nardin (10,111)
Corum (8,189)
TAG Heuer (7,450)
Chanel (6,980)
Mido (5,722)
Porsche Design (3,892)
Bulgari (3,698)
Ebel (3,516)
Montblanc (3,471),
Invicta (2,717)
Titoni (2,018)
Zenith (1,917)
Rado (1,805)
Eterna (1,706)
Enicar (1,672)
Paul Picot (1,638)
Sinn (1,596)
Christian Dior (1,100)

All others had less than 1000.

Increase of 10.7% overall which is fantastic. Breitling in particular issues by far more Quartz Chronometers than anyone else. Of 56,225 quartz certificates, 54,744 of them were for Breitling. That represents over 97% of total Quartz Chronometre output! Congrats to Breitling!

Another figure you can get out of these stats for Breitling is that just a hair over 30% of all Breitlings sent in for COSC certification were Quartz! That’s a very large percentage!

George H.W. Bush has donated a special edition of the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph that has his signature engraved on the back to the Charity Save the Children for their 75th Anniversary. It is organized by Bill and Melinda Gates and the Gates Foundation.

I’m not sure if Bush is donating the watch or of AP is donating it.. it sounds like Bush is, but I’m not sure if the watch was made a while ago and he is now donating it or if it was a joint effort created for the charity. At any rate.. kind of a neat watch… I’d rather have it without anyone’s signature on the back though.

More info in the full article here:
http://www.savethechildren.org/newsroom/2007/75th-Anniversary-online-auction.html

Just a short note for those that may have missed this. Antiquorum, for those that do not know, is the worlds largest auction house for swiss watches. They are a huge organization and when they annouced that their old CEO, Osvaldo Patrizzi would be dismissed, it was wondered who would replace him.

Mr. John Tsukahara will be the new CEO. It is unknown why Patrizzi was dismissed.

Tag Heuer has a couple of new models coming out… both of which I am quite excited about indeed! I’ve always liked the Carerra, but thought it was a little bit small… now Tag has jumped on the big watch bandwagon (well, not THAT big) and released the new Grand Carerra and Grand Carrera Grande-Date. That’s a lot of Grand!

The Grand Carrera is a VERY nice watch, absolutely stunning dial with exposed steel with circular graining on it.. very nice. A large 43mm diameter COSC certified Chronometer… KILLER looks. I love it. Featurs a Tag Caliber 17RS and sells for a cool $4,495. This puppy will make a nice addition to my collection. Oh yes.. Dials in Black and Silver.

The Grand Carrera Grande-Date is ALSO nice.. in fact, nicer i think, but wish it had the 43mm instead of the 42.5mm that it has. This one has an additional color, Brown.. as shown. This guy has the Tag Caliber 8RS, and also has the really nice Applied Tag logo… starting to remind me of Breitling!!! But I love the exposed silver with circular graining on it!! I love it!! This one has a cool big date complication but no Chrono.. and adds a GMT indicator which is housed in a little window… NICE! This bad boy will set you back $3,495 at MSRP.

Both watches are Water resistant to 100m. Get ’em while they’re hot!