Horological Meandering

This week, as we come close to the end of the series, we have a few oddities from the 70's.

When I saw the hole on the right my initial reaction was that the watch was without the crown but I was wrong.

Those watches were release with some plastic (?) piece covering the right hole. Weird.

Let's see what Ubik has to say.

Chronomatic and Cosmonaute:

Chronomatic and GMT

A "panda" Chrono-Matic.

And our regular batch of modern ones:

I like this heritage.

That's what we have for the week.

Thanks for seeing,

Nilo

Didn't know that model!

Are you keeping the best for the end?



Best,

Nicolas

Yes,there will be one. Some day.

This panda is something.

Cheers,

Nilo

A photo session...



Will try to take some pics....

Best,

Nicolas.

I know that you are not a "modern" watch guy but Breitling has some great modern ones.

A Navitimer with the B01 movement is always on my hit list.

Cheers,

Nilo

the materials show quite some signs of ageing.

Very nice watches again, thanks Nilo!

Cheers,

Mark

Those Cosmonaute were on the original (very small and "cheap" by today's standards) box.

Cheers,

Nilo

sorry to be so late onto this thread, Nilo.

In terms of the fact that the large cases have two holes, I can not really give a clear answer. This case was used for both the automatic
chronograph - which has the crown on the left - and the manual wind version which has the crown on the other side. It might simply
be a case of Breitling being economical in their production and having one case made that could be adapted for either movement!

The case itself is really very unique and a marvel of engineering, as Breitling searched for a way to provide a waterprrof case with their
trademark rotating sliderule. Here is a nice breakdown of it that gives a sense of it's complexity.

The vintage watches you show all use the cal 11 or 12 automatic movement. The GMT is perhaps the rarest of them, a really striking design and one I would
love to add someday to my own collection.

The smaller white dial chron-matic also has a very interesting dial, as it sports the wings of the AOPA. Which is very unusual at this late date, it may well mean
that this watch was sold through the AOPA to it's members as a special edition for them.

One final thought is that these big cases do wear very weel and are still really a good deal on the vintage market.

All I can say so far is WOWOWOW on your friends deep, thoughtful and lovely collection.

This message has been edited by Ubik on 2012-11-22 06:21:29

Ubik,

You are never late when you bring this type of information.

You are correct. Despite the case size, this watch dresses nice, even for an underdeveloped wrist like mine.

(My fault - I didn't notice that the GMT hand is under the hour hand?)

(My cat tried to eat my arm before the wrist shot)

Another - same case style and size.

Cheers,

Nilo

little to add to ubik's explanation, the modular design of the automatic cal.11/12 mounted a Dubois-Depraz chronigraph module on a Bueren micro-rotor ebauche, due to space restrictions the chronograph module had to be mounted in a 180 degree position due to space restrictions, so the crown ended up on the "wrong" side - though many today believe and claim these were watches for "lefties".

First of all, welcome to the PuristSPro.

You bring a lot of Breitling knowledge to here. Welcome.

Make yourself "at home".

Cheers,

Nilo