The Breitling Watch Source Forums

I looked at this watch because of the price initially then saw it was missing the bezel which would be super hard to find without buying a parts watch. What it did bring to mind was a question about whether the Premier movement would have been original to a Chronomat. I was under the opinion that a Premier watch was the only one that came with the Premier movement although I've seen plenty of Premier watches that didn't have a Premier movement. Just wondering. In any case, if you had a nice Chronomat you could certainly swap the cases although I don't think the asking price would probably make it worthwhile.

Paul

http://cgi.ebay.com/18kt-ROSE-GOLD-BREITLING-CHRONOMAT-769-FIRST-GEN_W0QQitemZ200369285098QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPocket_Watches?hash=item2ea6f0a7ea&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

Well someone obviously thought it was worth it - ended with Buy It Now for $1,250.

Premier movements were the more 'refined' movements of this era, and obviously matched the Premier tagged watches. However, the Premier movements were also routinely used in gold watches, and in fact gold versions of a model would often gain the Premier moniker on the dial as the only difference from SS.

The fact that this is a gold Chronomat means that the movement could well be original - the fact that it's already named Chronomat means that Premier doesn't appear on the dial.

Obviously someone must have the missing part laying around because it went fast. Just had never seen a Chronomat with a Premier movement before but the gold watch explanation sounds about right. I don't believe the Premier movements offer any different features over normal movements (jewel count, guilded, etc) though so what's the difference?

Paul

No tangible difference to the structure, just seen to be the better quality movements. Same as today there are three different grades of ebauche for (say a 7750) I think that these were Venus movements produced to tighter tolerances. Whether this actually made any difference to accuracy is debatable.

I have seen these Chronomats with both Breitling and Breitling Premier in script on the chrono bridge but I have no idea why. Craig

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S. Craig Bergsma