The Breitling Watch Blog

Got an interesting email this morning:

“I was wondering if you could help me out or let me know if this has ever
happened before.

I purchased a Chrono Avenger II from a certified jeweler in Sydney
Australia in 2002 (about 5 years to the day that I purchased it). This
morning, I looked at the watch face to find that the Breitling wing logo
had detached from the watch face and was sliding around in the case.

I could see to very small pins in the back of the wings and the watch face
had two very small holes from where the wings had come loose.

Has this ever happened that you know of?

My wife brought the watch to a Breitling certified jeweler and they said
two months to fix…and to add insult to injury, it apparently is not
covered under warranty.

Thanks.”

I’ve removed the signature to maintain his anonymity, but I get similar emails every day from site visitors asking me about things that have happened to their Breitlings. I’ve seen the applied logo fall off before, but the Chrono Avenger does not have an applied logo so i’m not quite sure how this happened… must be a different watch.

Anyway… does anyone else have any stuff like that going on ever? weird.

So, I got my Eterna Airforce Chrono earlier this week, and wow… am I impressed! Once I put it on I noticed that it felt a lot like a slightly more expensive Tag Heuer Aquaracer… in fact, its more robust feeling, and uses the same movement as it, the Valjoux 7750…. also the same movement as the Breitling 13 used in the Chronomats and Navitimers. Bidirectional Compass Bezel, and Superluminova arabics and hands… completely swiss made. This watch is incredible for the price… absolutely incredible. Its likely that the lack of proper marketing of the brand is the reason that they are not as popular as they could be. Porsche Design bought the company out a while back as far as I know… and their Kon Tiki line is somewhat popular.

The dial is very nicely made.. .and has very nice guilloche subdials. I am actually quite stunned by it. It reminds me of a cross between a Tag, and the dial of a late 90’s Chronomat. Very nice. I would highly recommend this watch to anyone who wants quality and doesn’t really care too much about name dropping.

Bracelet is okay.. about right for hte price point.. not as well made as Breitling bracelets, and about in-line with the entry level Tag bracelets like the Formula 1 and possibly the Aquaracers, but certainly not the Link.

Movement: 8/10
Case/Crystal/Crown: 8/10
Dial/Hands: 8/10
Strap / Buckle / Bracelet: 7/10
Accuracy: 8/10
Comfort: 8/10
Packaging / Manual: 8/10
Overall Impression: 8/10

I have reposted this from a forum.. but it is my writing:

I own several watchwinders, and have owned yet more others in the past. Currently I am running 2 Orbita Sparta Deluxe single winders, and 2 Rapport Cherry Duo winders. I’ve also had different incarnations of the Sparta, the Orbita Geneva, Steinhausen/Cheap Chinese Winders, and also seen several in action such as the Wolf Designs and Orbita Bellino.

Not all winders are created equal.

You need to decide a few things when buying a winder… How quiet does it need to be? How many watches does it need to wind? Does it need to be Battery or AC Operated or both? and How much control over the directionality do I need? The watches that you use in it, whether they are Rolex, Omega, Breitling or whatever.. will determine the answers to your questions.

Some of the more popular brands out there right now are Orbita, Wolf Designs, Scatola del Tempo, Eilux, and Rapport. On ebay however, there has been a large number of chinese made cheap watch winders available. I have bought some of these… and in my experience, there has always been problems with them. They all have cheap wood… very thin, and poorly finished on the inside, and lighter than you’d expect. Some are very noisy (however expensive winders aren’t always quiet either!) and some have inferior pillow/mounts for the watches.. one of the chinese units I purchased couldn’t fit my watches on them because my wrists are too small!

I really do like the Orbita watchwinders out there, but I’ve encountered many noisy models. A lot of sellers are selling outdated old stock of Orbita winders that generate a lot of noise… the Geneva range and the older Spartas can be noisy. They Spartas aren’t so bad since they only make noise for about 5 seconds every 10-15 minutes, however the Genevas can grind on for 10-15 minutes at a time!

The Wolf Designs winders are among my favourites. They are programmable, and they are quiet. They even store settings! They are however expensive. If you want a good, quiet winder on a budget, I would recommend Eilux or Rapport. They don’t have quite as many programmable options, but the are very well made, and they are quiet, and they are of good quality. Eilux in particular is extremely quiet.

Make sure that you check what direction your watch winds in. If it is a Breitling that is listed on the Breitling Source site, going to the watch model page will tell you which direction the watch needs to be wound in on a watch winder. The Breitling Caliber 13 that is in the Breitling Chronomat Evolution and Super Avengers in particular on winds one direction, and it is very common. It needs to be wound a bit more than bi-directional winding movements in order to stay fully wound, so keep that in mind. Orbita’s website also has information on just about all watches and the direction of winding: http://www.orbita.net/pages/17100.htm

Look for some upcoming reviews of watch winders such as the Rapport and Orbita Sparta winders.

IWC is set to launch a new watch in a few weeks at SIHH in Geneva. It will be using an in-house IWC designed Movement, the Cal. 89360. It will be a beautiful and very large 43mm wide Tonneau shaped case, available in Platinum, Rose Gold, White Gold and Stainless Steel.

I’ve always been a fan of IWC, especially of their Aquatimer, GST and Portugese Lines. These is a fairly radical style for IWC, but looks very nice. Hopefully it is a popular model for them.

Case: 43mm
Strap: 24/18mm
Movement: In-house Caliber 89360.
Movement highlights:
-Column wheel switching
-68 hour power reserve with single barrel mainspring
-Free sprung balance with 4 adjustable weights
-Flyback function
-Improved Pellaton winding system with 4 pawls (instead of 2).
-Winding efficiency improved by 30%.
-Integrated 60 minute and 12 hour counter.

Well, only Rolex, Blancpain, Vacheron, and Ulysse Nardin videos right now… but the B’s will come. I’m working on getting lots of Breitling vids up, and hopefully lots of people will enjoy them.. but right now I have 9 videos up of general watches and watchmaking movements type things… check ’em out! The link is listed there on the right, but there will be more.

http://youtube.com/profile?user=breitlingsource