The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Dude…you have to expect some joking comments with this. You seem like a nice guy, and no offense is intended but you are a pretty picky consumer. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that…I’m ridiculously anal myself. Keeping that in mind though, when someone makes a joke, a better reaction than insults is to laugh with them or to respond with a similarly cunning remark. It’s always better to interpret it and keep it playful rather than taking and making it personal IMO. In the event you (or anyone) have a personal issue with someone, I would encourage handling it via a private message instead of a public post.

One of the reasons for the reactions is because this is a normal occurrence, although I agree it is a little pronounced in your case. Alligator and crocodile leather have both scales and differences in skin consistencies throughout the hide. The model you bought is a higher-end strap…higher end straps have more pronounced scales and patterns which means the strap has more variable thickness and consistency because of this. It’s really nothing to worry about and from what I can see, the material on your strap looks very, very nice.

The strap will break in and eventually the spring bar will even out under pressure. Reptilian straps take a longer time to break in. I intentionally put new straps on a Citizen or Seiko of similar size to my Breitling, and then tightly secure the strap around a piece of strong foam that is shaped to be close to my wrist, and I give it at least a few days to a few weeks. With raised scales and a strong pattern, this happens commonly, with varying degrees of how pronounced it is. IMO trying to break it in would have been a better idea given the postage.

The other reason I point this out is because after you have worn the strap for a while, this affect will actually naturally occur. Wrists are not perfectly symmetrical and they taper. That means the leather will ultimately mold to your wrist through multiple changes in size. Keep in mind that because wrists taper, the side closer to the hand will be slightly shorter than the other side.

Thanks for your advice nickzac, the problem with my alligator strap is the hole where it hold the fat boy spring bar, spring bar is slanted when being slotted into the hole. Therefore, strap looks slanted when attached to my graham oversize, kain heritage actually responded and told me that it's abnormal, i sent it back to him, today it should be reaching him. Hope he can get it repaired, my concern is still the slanting buckle, i believe he can fix the aforementioned issue.