The Breitling Watch Blog

It wasn’t that long ago that when you purchased a New Swiss Made automatic Watch, you were guaranteed at least an ETA 2824 movement in it. While the ETA 2824 movement is by no means a rare or exciting automatic movement, it is reliable and can be very accurate in it’s highest level of finish. The ETA 2824 is used by a very large number of companies including Breitling, Hamilton, Oris, Omega, Tudor, Eterna, Tag Heuer and many many others including most of the German Brands.

ETA 2824-2 from a Limes Watch

After that came the Sellita SW200 movement, a direct copy of the ETA 2824 that is mostly made in Switzerland. While it is unknown how much of the parts are made in China, they at least come close to ETA in their quality. They are cheaper movements, and many brands including Invicta, Oris, Enzo and Eterna have begun to use the Selitta SW200 in their watches. I don’t mind the Selitta too much, at least it is somewhat comparable to the ETA-2824. The next step is a bit more disturbing.

While its not a new thing, many people many not be aware that an Invicta brand named Technica Swiss Ebauches purchases chinese made Sea-Gull movements and final finishes them in Switzerland and badges them as Swiss Made. Swiss Made regulations only provide that at least 50% of the value of the movement must be from Switzerland. With the price of the Chinese Ebauches being so low, its not difficult to refinish the movements in Switzerland in order to meet the criteria.

Swiss Mechanical Invictas

This is an unfortunate situation, and devalues the Swiss Made brand. Invicta has done well by selling a large number of watches, purchasing higher end brands like S. Coifman and devaluing them as well. While I think that Invicta has some good value in their lines, the majority of their designs are either very ugly, or hommages. The Invictas above sell for $119, and claim to have Swiss Made movements inside them.

I guess the point I am trying to make here is that the Swiss Made brand is being devalued and I think its a shame – hopefully its prestige can be maintained rather than be tainted by the likes of Invicta.

To supplement the Breitling The Book post I had earlier.. I have added a Breitling The Book video review for those that are interested in purchasing the book, but aren’t really sure what it is like given Breitlings some what limited information on it and highly stylized photographs that don’t really illustrate what it looks like.

I’ve reprinted some of the articles that Roffensian posted on the forums for those of you that do not frequent them. They are very informative and the three that I have posted cover the General Mechanical watch, The Perpetual Calendar and the Minute Repeater. They are beginner articles on how these movements work and what they do.

Very cool stuff… I’ve linked each one individually:

How a Mechanical Watch Works
Minute Repeater
Perpetual Calendar

A little video I shot on Aftermarket Panerai Straps. I do a quick review of several of these straps, and talk about the different kinds available on the market. Aftermarket Panerai straps are a world of fun, and can be purchased second-hand or new. They are easy to sell and a great way to get some variety without breaking the bank, especially in these times.

I figured this deserves a post, as I’ve been watching some of those Ukraine and Argentine sellers make thousands of dollars off deliberately forged frankenwatches from unsuspecting eBay buyers.

BUYERS BEWARE! When you buy a vintage watch from the Ukraine, Russia or Argentina, you may not be getting what you are paying for!

I’d been searching for a pocket watch conversion style of watch, like many on ebay are. My concern of course was the authenticity of a peice if I were to buy something that was a bit more pricey than your usual $150-200 fare. Like one of those Hy Moser or Longines WWII watches that seem to be so abundant in the Ukraine.

Seeing watch after watch listed every week in the dozens, I started to question whether or not these watches were in fact real.. especially since most of the movements had what looked to be to be incorrect markings or in many cases missing markings for the dial that was attached. I did a bit of research and looked on several boards all over, and there definately seems to be a consensus. Most of these watches are forgeries or frankenwatches with parts procured from many different places. That is the problem with buying vintage stuff. You never know when it’s real.

Below I’ve linked one of many posts on the subject. If you google around, you will find a handful of other discussions in the matter as well:
http://forums.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=215080

This is a companion article to my other polishing article that gives you a little bit of insight into restoring your brushed finish watches.

Finally, I’ve gotten around to taking pictures of some of my tools that I use to restore the final finish on my watches when they need some taking care of. It can be a bit of work getting a polish going nicely, and in addition to these tools, its nice to have a rubber vise, or a standard vise and some cloth to protect your watches and bracelets from getting damaged by the vise. Also always remember to wear eye protecting when you are working with power tools like a dremel.

The five different methods I’m going to discuss here are Fabulustre Cloth, Sunshine Cloth, Cape Cod Cloth, Metal Polish, the Dremel Polishing method. Each one varies in intensity, and you’ll want to pick the one that is most appropriate for your situation.

The Fabulustre Cloth

The Fabulustre cloth is without a doubt the most useful cloth that I have, and is fantastic for that final cleaning finish, and removes all the ‘residue’ from other polishing methods. I would say that this is a great cloth to have around even just to put your watch on when you are cleaning it with a different type of cloth. They are large and last a long time.

The Fabulustre cloth is really two clothes that are sewn together on one end. The red side is impregated with very very fine and weak abrasives that polish your watch or jewelry, and the yellow side is for buffing it afterwards. You simply rub anywhere where the watch is polished with the red side and then buff with the yellow. Very simple to use. Its great for weekly cleaning of your watch, but really doesn’t polish out any visible scratches.

Sunshine Cloths

The first time I ever heard of these clothes, they were hailed as the successor of the Cape Cod cloth, and that they were just as good but less messy. I was excited, and a very gracious member of the forum, Ianmedium, met with me at a local coffee shop and gave me two of them to try out. They are definately not a replacement for the cape cod, but they are defiantely a great way to maintain your watch in-between cape cod applications.

The sunshine cloth is kind of like a more effective fabulustre without the buffing cloth. It is a small single abrasive dry polishing cloth. It does leave a bit of residue on your hands when you are using it, but not nearly as much as a cape cod, which is moist. The Sunshine is a great way to maintain your watch if your feel like the fabulustre isn’t cutting it anymore. The Sunshine is also very easy to use. Just rub all over your polished watch with the sunshine cloth.

Cape Cod Cloths

The next step up from the Sunshine Cloth is the venerable Cape Cod cloth. It also is a polishing compound impregnated cloth, however the cape cod has a moist compound impregnanted which is more aggressive than that found in both the Fabulustre and the Sunshine cloths, with the added bonus (or not) of vanilla scent. The Cape Cods are a little bit more difficult to use because they are not dry, and require a buffing cloth to clean the vanilla scented polish off afterwards.

I have found the most effective way of using the cape cods is to rub with a cape cod in a circular motion for a fairly long time, say 20 seconds on each side of the bracelet. After the watch is lathered in the polish, take a clean dry microfiber cloth, and buff the bracelet until it is mostly clean, then rinse off the remaining polish in water.

Cape Cods leave your watch looking very shiny, with most of the minor swirlies gone. The biggest change is your watch will be totally shiny looking again. If you are not getting the results you want, the scratches may be too deep, or you might need to use more. If the scratches are any deeper, or you need to get into some areas where you need more precision, its probably better to use a metal polishing paste or use the polishing compound bars instead.

Metal Polishing Paste

Polishing Pastes are a great way to maintain a polish on your watches when you need something a bit more agressive than a cape cod, but you do not have access to a dremel or aren’t really the handy type. Caution: Some polishes are not fine enough for a mirror polish and I have heard that they can leave fine scratches in your finish, which means you could use them as a secondary to a final polish with a stainless steel compound with dremel. One of the better polishing pastes I have found is Flitz. I could not find my flitz so I just have a photo of Metal Glo, which works well, but not quite as good.

Using a metal polishing paste is pretty easy. Just apply to a cottom or microfiber cloth and start polishing your watch in a circular motion. When you are satisfied, you can buff it off with a clean cotton or microfiber cloth. When you are done, just rinse in water to get the remaining polish out.

Dremel with Polishing Compound

I find that any time I want a good final polish on a watch that need to be restored, there is no substitude for sticking the watch in a vise, and givin ‘er with the dremel. There’s my rotary tool with a standard buffing wheel and some felt pointed wheels and smaller wheels which are good for parts of the case that can be hard to get at. Its very important to use eye protection when using a dremel because it can launch things into your eye like metal particles and compound.

Its pretty easy to do if you have the right tools and a steady hand. Look the watch securly in your vise, and then turn your dremel on low speed, and load it up by placing it on the compound until the wheel is sufficiently loaded with compound. Once you’ve got it loaded you can start polishing your watch! When you switch from one compound to the next, be sure to use a different buffing wheel. Next I’ll explain which compounds I use for which tasks.

There’s a shot of four types of compound bars I have. You won’t be using the Brown Tripoli for stainless steel, but the Black Emery, White Rouge and Green Stainless compounds are all useful depending on the task at hand. I’m not going to talk about how to polish precious metal watches with your rotary tool because I’ve never done it before and I’m not familiar with the compounds. Precious metals like gold are much softer and you have to be extra careful when using power tools to polish them.

Black Emery is the most abrasive of the three and will usually only be used if there is a really deep scratch or pitting and you need to cut away a lot of material. It will leave the steel kind of shiny, but not quite factory shiny.

White Rouge cuts away a decent amount of material, but is less abrassive than the Black Emery. Good for light scratches that you can just feel with your fingernail.

Green Stainless is a final polish for stainless steel and is good for achieving that final brilliant glossy shine that Stainless has when it comes from the factory.

Remember to keep your buffing wheels loaded with compound, and remember not to overheat the metal. Metal gets hot when you polish it with power tools so be careful. Let it cool down after working at it for a while. Polishing watches is a simple thing to do when you have the right tools for the job. Hope you enjoyed the article, and happy polishing!

I probably should have posted this before, but it just occured to me. Ever wonder how to pronouce some of those Watch company names? Like Jaeger-LeCoultre? or Audemars Piguet? Well, here is a list of Watch brands and related watch terms and an AUDIO TRACK(!) for each one. No need to read phonetics, this ones read out for you!

Here’s the list:

Audemars Piguet
Bertolucci
Baume & Mercier
Blancpain
Breguet
Breitling
Bucherer
Cartier
Chopard
DJ Richard
Doppelchronograph
Dubey & Schaldenbrand
Dubois & Depraz
Philippe Dufour
Jacques Etoile
Fliegerchronograph
Franck Muller
Forget
Gerald Genta
Glasshutte Original
Girard Perregaux
Hublot
IWC (in German)
Jaquet Droz
Jaeger LeCoultre
Lange & Sohne
Longines
Maurice Lacroix
Montblanc
Muhle Glasshutte
Parmigiani
Officine Panerai
Paul Picot
Patek Philippe
Rado
Rattrapante
Roberge
Roger Dubuis
Revue Thommen
Schwarz-Etienne
Tissot
Universal Geneve
Ulysse Nardin
Vacheron Constantin
Van der Bauwede
Van der Klaauw
Valjoux
Sinn EZM
Zenith (in German)
Tourbillon
Finissage
Perlage
Equation du Temps
ETA
F.P. Journe
Glycine
Guilloche
Helvetia
Lemania
Limes
Ollech & Wajs
Piaget
Pythagore
Reserve de Marche
Rolex
Schaffhausen
Sjoo Sandstrom
Sonnerie
Traversetolo
Tutima
Le Vallee de Joux

And here’s the link:
http://www.chronometrie.com/watchsounds/watchsoundspage.htm

One of the most frequent questions that potential watch buyers have is whether they should buy a watch online or from an authorized brick and mortar dealer (AD). Well, each has their pros and cons, and it depends on what kind of buyer you are for the most part.

I recall an article written in the Watches and Jewellery section of the Financial Times on November 10, 2007 entitled “Time for the Exchange of your Life”. It was a very well written article explaining the merits of buying from an authorized dealer, and how the relationship between the watch dealer and the buyer differs from most commercial transactions. More specifically, the article states that “to be sold a watch is to enter a drama that is part seduction and part entertainment”.

I have purchased watches from online sources as well as brick and mortar ADs, and I think I am a little more objective than most as I do see the merits of buying from both. Quite often I end up buying used from friends or acquaintances when they are hard up for cash or need to make room for other watches in their collections.

Buying Online

Generally speaking, people buy online because they feel that they can get better pricing, and with collectors that buy watches as often as once a week, it becomes a lot of cost effective as well as convenient to purchase online, with virtually every brand available at your fingertips.

Another additional benefit of buying online is the availability of previously owned pieces. There is an ever-growing community of online watch buyers and sellers who are constantly updating and upgrading their collection of watches, and are more than happy to buy your used watches from you only to sell them again in 6 months (or less!).

There are obvious cons to purchasing online, the most prevailing of which is the chance of purchasing a fake. There are many steps that you can take to make sure that your online purchase is authentic, the most effective of which is “Buy the Seller, not the watch”. When buying online, especially at auction, it can be easy to get caught up in the excitement of the purchase and the beautiful pictures. The single most important thing to keep in mind when purchasing online is to make sure the seller is legit and trustworthy. Buying from forums where sellers will often have a long history of buying and selling is useful to check their track record. Ebay is great because of the feedback system, but remember not to take it at face value as ebay accounts can be purchased as well as hijacked and use for malicious behaviour.

If buying a watch online from one of the many grey market dealers, you need to keep in mind that many of them sell watches with incomplete papers and filed-off serial numbers in order to protect their sources. This devalues a watch and also means that Breitling will not service the watch directly. You will not be able to send the watch in to Breitling, and instead will have to rely on your local AD repairing the watch in-house. Take note of this in the watch description and call if it is not mentioned. There are many grey market dealers that also sell fully serialized watches with complete papers as well. They will, however, not come with a Breitling factory warranty. They are usually warranted by the dealer for the same amount of time as a factory warranty would be. Not quite as good as the real deal, but quite acceptable in many cases.

There are times when you may want to purchase some accessories online, even though you have purchased your watch from an authorized dealer. This is also a good way to save money, but remember that many accessories sold online are often fakes as well and are quite often more difficult to spot than the watch itself.

In summary, buying online is best reserved for those with experience making online purchases and know the markets well enough that they can prevent themselves from being ripped off. There are a lot of good reasons for buying online, with price and selection being the two biggest. I’ve listed of the general pros and cons below.

Pros:

1. Typically more Cost Effective
2. Greater Brand Selection
3. Secondary Market for even more savings
4. Great for people who buy and sell frequently

Cons:

1. Chances of buying a fake are greater
2. Less of a dealer-buyer experience
3. No freebies like Hats, Pens, Etc.
4. Warranty Is not Factory

Buying from a Dealer

For your first watch, I would always recommend buying from a dealer. It takes away that tiny bit of doubt that many people will always have when buying online as to whether or not the timepiece is authentic. All grey market dealers sell authentic watches as they typically obtain them from authorized dealers themselves.

When you purchase your watch from your a local authorized dealer, you create an opportunity to develop a relationship that can last a long time. Every time you come in, they will tell you about any new stuff that is come in, and will likely start to give you some free stuff to entice you into considering another purchase. Usually watch staff are not pushy, unless you are in a tourist location since you will not be coming back again.

A lot of buyers like to buy the watches overseas to save on taxes, and then just wear the watches back on their wrists. This can save you some money, but in the long run it is not always the wisest choice as it makes reselling the watch difficult if you do not keep the boxes (you can, however, ship them back to yourself), and when you are buying from the same dealer locally more than once, he will give you benefits such as reduced prices and other perks. The better long term decision, especially if you are choosing to purchase more than one watch, is to buy locally.

The two biggest benefits of buying from any dealer are the guarantee of the origin and authenticity of the watch, and the warranty that comes with it. The biggest unseen benefit is the relationship that is created between dealer and buyer, and this can only be realized if you purchase the watch locally, or if you purchase it from a remote location that you visit regularly. Of course any benefit you would get from being a repeat customer would be moot if the watches you want are from different dealers. Also worth mentioning is the somewhat more limited selection available when shopping locally. No matter what city you are in, there will be at least one brand you cannot buy, including brands that only sell online. You will however have the opportunity to order any color configuration of the watch you are interested in from an authorized dealer, which you may not be able to do online.

There is something special about coming into your local dealer and having the people you usually deal with come to you with wonderful new toys to grace your wrist with.

Pros:

1. Authenticity Guarantee
2. Factory Warranty
3. Buying Experience

Cons:

1. More Expensive
2. Brand Selection is More Limited

Overall, buying a watch is a very personal experience and whether you buy online or from a local AD is your choice. I`ve tried to provide a decent amount of information here so that you can make an informed decision as to which one is right for you. More and more people are starting to buy luxury timepieces for the first time, and many are buying online for the first time, so some pointers can be useful. I hope you enjoyed the article!