The Breitling Watch Source Forums

well I am amazed !
my father bought this watch back then, as I said 1960-1970
It remained in the family even since
I don't see how the hell a chinese could have got into this
i checked that the shop still exists and yes it does it just got a lot bigger
i'll be phoning them next week to see if they can help or not
may be they have some kind of archive or history of what they sell, like vacheron constantin , who found in about twenty minutes when my great grand father bought his pocket watch.

thank you for nothing
you make it looks as though it is something dirty and that is rotten

I don't know anything about Breitling and watches for that matter
and I was happy to learn something but I don't have to follow your paranoïa
tartarine

People are trying to help you and grappling with a piece that doesn't quite fit the mold of what these vintage EXPERTS have seen before. They are taking the time - their time - to evaluate the piece for you and give their best thoughts and opinions. No one attacked you or your watch.

Your response was inappropriate and overtly childish. Seems to be a spate of that on the forum this week.


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SHARKMAN

has there been a full moon this week? Haven't been paying much attention.

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"I don't got the bright watch I got the right watch" -Jay Z

Venus in transit


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SHARKMAN

I'm so very sorry to have troubled you. I noted that Fred had asked me for my observations, and since this is a discussion forum that favors open exchanges of ideas, I thought I would just go ahead and offer my thoughts, based on a couple of decades of collecting vintage Breitlings. That is why I put my comments in probablistic terms and suggested there are several possibilities for your watch being as it is. I don't think I mentioned your watch had a Chinese connection, only that I've observed additional shennanigans from that quarter. Vintage Breitling watches are worked on and changed in every corner of the world.

Of course, if your father bought it as a Breitling, then it must be a Breitling. We will surely not challenge your honesty. It would be good to know what store still had mid-1950s inventory when your father bought it in the 1960s or 1970s.

But, if you are still curious and as I look at it some more, I wonder if any of the dial markers are correct. The hour markers are placed to enter into the sub-registers place. How does that look in person?

"This watch is really confusing me. Nothing is what I would expect - the Breitling 17 jewels stamp on the movement bridge is unlike the stamping that I would expect to see, but looks factory done. The font of the serial number on the inside of the caseback is also unusual, the number itself dates to 1961 which I'm OK with. Is there any other number on the back - a 3 or 4 digit model number?

I think that it's fine, just really unusual." says Roffensian

any problem with that Bill ?
care to check ?
tartarine

Bill's opinion is no less or more valid than mine.

Your attitude towards him is completely unacceptable and if your only interest in coming here is to hear what you want to hear, then stick the following in your pipe and smoke it (as the English say) - it's just as valid as my comments that you quoted:



Bill's interpretation of the watch may well be accurate, and I may well be wrong. There are no definitive answers with pieces like this and there is nothing that Bill says that I can argue with.

People here will give you their best expertise and opinions and they do it without any expectation of thanks. The least that you can do is respect their best efforts, if all you want is validation of your beliefs to quote in an eBay sale then please go somewhere else, the community can well live without you.

As Sharkman says, some extremely childish attitudes around here lately.

Check.

Well, whatever tartarine thought Roff or I had said, Bill actually says the exact same thing, just draws a different conclusion - and a much more logical one.

The caseback is clearly different from all others we know, actually shows no similarities at all to other 1950s gold cases, neither in form or marking.

The fact that no reference number appears on it either means it is one of those "prototypes" we keep hearing about without ever finding definite proof, a special issue, or a "made up piece" - definitely not a documented, correct, mass produced Breitling.

I have seen some surprising pieces from the 1950s (strange ones like the "Ferrari" 1188, for example), most apparently traceable to Italy with quite a lot of special issues like the "Giro" or the model issued for the Italian Football Association, all based on the Breitling "Cadette" line, so my expectation was to find the corresponding Venus 188 inside - but I was wrong.

Maybe that shop your father bought it from can shed some light on it ?

And I think an apology would be in order, tartarine.

He's been back to the site multiple times since he was called on behaviour without commenting so don't hold your breath Fred.

Well, Roff, you know me, always expecting the best from our members .....

We really had some strange threads lately.

To me this is just another recase job and the back cover has had the Breitling logo added to give it some appearance of being correct. Maybe not done originally to deceive but the end result certainly isn't correct by any stretch of the imagination.

So
I would like to make things clear:
1.This watch is not for sale
2.I never used eBay to buy or sell anything and I don’t intend to start
3.I want to hear all plausible suggestions as to what it really because it is going to remain with me for quite a while I hope.
4.I was happy to find that a forum existed full of people who like looking at things properly and share their experiences.

Therefore I think I owe you Roffensian an apology, because you answered my questions however primitive they were. So once again be thanked for you time your reflexion and for sharing your knowledge. Accept please my apologies for dragging you into my conflict. I was just trying to point out that you, and the list with the dates, made my watch a 60s watch and not a 50s one as Bill assumed.
The 1961 make sense in my family history, and I doubt very much that this shop would have to wait 10 years to find a buyer.
From the tone of your last message though I didn’t think you were expecting an answer so once again sorry

I want to apologize to you Watchfred because you gave me the impression you were really looking at my watch and work out the possibilities and probabilities. I also thank you for your time and for the kind tone you used in explaining things. You gave me the incentive to go to a watch maker to have it open and it was a good suggestion. I hope you will accept my apologies because I would hate you to think that I am just an ungrateful brat. I am not used to be considered as such
I had a good think this week end, hence too the delay, and I reckon the best would be for me to go to this shop with the watch and the repair bill and see what I can come up with. May be the repairman is still alive and can explain exactly when looking at his signature what was done, but then maybe not, we’ll see. I’ll go this summer I think they would be able to tell me more if they see the real thing and not the pictures
Yes I took very personally Bill’s comments, and found his tone offensive implying some cheating and lying
I was honest and clear in what I said. I also said I did not know anything about watches so his last answer seems more provocative than constructive but let’s leave it at that
I have been emptying a house full of memories alone and yes feelings run quite high. I answered more with my guts than with my brain
Once again buy a watch as a Breitling does not make one out of it but the where, who from and when make it in this case very probable indeed.
So that is what I had to say.
If Roffensian and Watchfred want to forgive me and want to hear about the results I can up with, I’ll gladly do so. If you don’t want me to come back here say it clearly too.
In the meantime best whishes
tartarine

I don't mind being on your naughty list. I'm sorry that I read the leading "9" in the serial as an "8," so I went to the wrong year. I do think that helps a little, since there is some catalog material from that time frame reproduced in the The Book that Breitling put out a couple of years ago. You need a magnifier, but you can scan what was being sold around 1960. I think the first available Trautman catalog is a few years after that (like 1963), but I think all Breitlings in that catalog have a model name like "Top Time" on the dial. Someone should check.

The fundamental issue with vintage Breitlings of all kinds is that they are not well documented. The current Breitling is not the same company that produced watches in the 50s and 60s - the ownership changed in 1978 when the original company was on the verge of bankruptcy and the documentation was lost.

We therefore are left with a game of probabilities and as everyone has noted, your watch is not what we expect to see - the case in particular. There's an old adage - if you hear hooves think horses not zebras, in other words the most obvious answer is usually the right one, and if you had just bought this watch with that case then everyone here would have said that the case looked wrong. It was only the provenance that gave pause for thought, and you have to understand that it wouldn't be the first time that someone came here with a 'family heirloom' that they had just thrown together in their basement and were looking to flog with quotes from members here to support their vastly inflated prices.

The reason that you are getting differing opinions is simply because no one can say for sure why this piece doesn't have a 'normal' case - was it like that from the factory or has it had a more interesting experience in life - it's simply speculation based on experience.

One final comment, I have 'known' the guys here through this forum for some time and I can say for certainty that it is always about the watch, it's never personal.