Horological Meandering

WatchFred
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thanks & some Breitling Divers u asked for ....

thanky Graham, thanks Nilo,

happy to add a bit of model background to this thread - Nilo, I was not criticizing your friend in any way and love the watches he has collected, I have some imperfect watches too, although I try to be as close to original as possible - but there are no relevant collector's reference books for Breitlings (Richter, the de-facto standard is full of errors, questionable watches, omissions) and the current Breitling company only shares the name with the original manufacturer of these pieces, they very often know little to nothing about model histories, so I try to add my feedback if I see partly incorrect information on relevant fora.

For most (hopefully all?) models that Breitling manufactured after the early 1940s I (with a lot of help from other collector friends, primus inter pares ubik/Eitan) should now be able to verify authenticity and the the originality of most components, it gets a lot murkier for the earliest pieces from the 1920s to the mid/late 1930s, so if you could post some movement/caseback pics of post 12/11 this might be truly helpful.

You asked for Breitling divers in your previous post, so let me share some here, would be extremely happy if your friend finds a Diver box, as the early pieces are very, very rare; almost none survived in decent shape.

The first Breitling Dive watches were introduced in 1957, the SuperOcean ref. 1004 automatic and the ref. 807 chronograph, based on a Venus 150.

Here is the launch ad:



and some wrist shots, would kill for a nice ref. 807 dial:



The second Diver generation was the SuperOcean ref.2005 and two smaller pieces, refs. 3865/3875 and 3962



The ref. 2005 was a highly innovative watch, based on a heavily modified Venus 188 (later Valjoux 7730/31) ebauche, it offered a 60 minute Dive Timer Chronograph (that large hand w/ the rhomboid tip that looks like the second hand) and an active/pause/reset indicator at 6.





Last Diver the original Breitling launched was the first (?, impossible to verify, but it seems so) 20ATM automatic Dive Chronograph, presented in 1969; the SuperOcean ref. 2105 Cal. 11/12: