The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Hi experts. I have a Superocean Pro from 2000 or so, which was fully serviced in 2011 by Breitling UK following some water damage. It has a service replacement dial and hands, which glow brightly - unlike the old original dial, which would likely have been made with tritium lume. But the dial has some iffy details about it: there is no "shadow" behind the numerals as there used to be, the '6' is obviously off-centre, the line around the date window is much thicker than any I've seen on the web, and there is a shadow in the middle of the '1' of "1884". All of these things are noticeable with the naked eye, especially the '6'.

The BUK service agent corroborates my service paperwork and says the watch is legit. It doesn't unduly detract from my enjoyment of the watch, but still... he thought that the dicky dial might have been because Breitling no longer keeps spare dials for old Supers in stock, and would have had to make it up separately (the service did take 4 months according to the correspondence that came with the watch). Dials make up on the hoof probably didn't have the same consistency as production-line dials, and may have even been hand-printed. Also, the datewheel font is different to the original, although if that was replaced due to water damage, they'd just get whatever ETA had lying around at the time, presumably.

The rest of the watch is fine aside from a slightly loose bezel. But the dial puzzles me. So a Q for the experts: is it possible that a service dial would have to be made up, or is this actually the mother of all cover-ups...?

No grassy knoll here, it's an older watch and the likelihood of NOS dials still being available is remote (especially given that many would be useless because of aged tritium). It likely was made up as a one off based around modified current templates.

Ha Thanks. That's sort of what I assumed although I'd quite like the dial to look not quite so home-made...