Horological Meandering

Harv
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I bought my son a Breitling

About twenty five years ago my son, Jeff, was leaving the U.S. Air Force and was going to fly for a major carrier. As a gift, I offered to buy a Breitling for him. Stubborn as he was (and still can be) he refused saying that "My $20 K-Mart keeps perfect time in my 30 million dollar airplane. (In those days that was a lot of money). He emphasized this by removing the watch from his wrist, throwing it in the air so that it bounced on the floor and remarked "Let me see what happens if you do that with your Vacheron". So, I said to myself, "H. Quit while you are ahead. There's no sense to shovel sand against the tide".

Some years later I came across an old Breitling and mentioned it to Jeff. His remark was "Ah, I should have taken you up on that offer". "Too late" I said, "That will teach you not to look a gift horse in the mouth." About a year or so after that I came across a vintage Navitimer with a brown alligator band and my instincts as a parent got the better of my good sense. I bought it, even though it was an early model and needed repairs to he extent that the rotating bezel was frozen  - and this is the main point of my story. First, to my surprise, the dial did not carry the Breitling logo but I knew the watch to be genuine and the dial original. I took the watch to the Breitling service facility in New York City and was told that they would not touch it since it was a vintage model and that there was only one person in the U.S. who would work on it.  That person was someplace in, if I recall correctly, Pennsylvania. I was told that some years earlier that man worked for Breitling in Switzerland and that he had decided to emigrate to the United States. Coincidentally, and possibly with that, Breitling decided to stop itself servicing vintage models in th U.S. , gave or sold a large quantity of vintage parts and machinery to that watchmaker and let him establish his own vintage repair center in the U.S. The regular service center in New York gave me the name and address of that person and I contacted him and sent the watch. I don't remember the name of that watchmaker but that he operated alone with no helpers except for his wife who was the office manager, bookkeeper, telephone operator, etc., etc, etc.  Incidentally, the watchmaker confirmed that some early vintage models did not carry the Breitling logo but that he could replace the dial with a logoed one if I wished. I rejectd the idea and chose to keep the original. It was close to a year before the watch was returned and it was in immaculate condition. I could not recognize that it was not new. The cost, as I recall, was $800. You can guess how long ago that was.

Now, back to Jeff. He was ecstatic when I gave him the watch. However, some years later I met him at LaGuardia airport and noticed that he was wearing a very inexpensive (cheap) Casio. Naturally, I inquired and was told something to the effect of "I don't wear the Breitling when I fly beause it is large and with so many parts and so much equipment in the cockpit I don't want to run the risk of banging the watch on something".   Also, he said, "My Casio is much smaller, is battery operated and keeps perfect time in both digital and analog displays so that it can be set for two time zones. It contains a small built in data base for telephone and address book, has an alert buzzer that can be set as needed ....I wear the Breitling for show and tell but not for work.  The sliderule on the bezel is fun to play with but for a working professional pilot it is useless and no match for the aircraft's on board computers."  Incidentally, Jeff is now an instructor and check pilot for a major U.S. carrier where his present specialties are the Boeing 757 and 767 wide body intercontinental.

So, that's my tale of Breitling.

Keep smiling,

Harv