Just Because: When 17 Vintage Breitling Watches Come To Town, Of Course We're Going To Talk About Them (2024)

ADVERTIsem*nT

This year is Breitling's 140th anniversary. Like any decent watch brand, it's celebrating itself in a number of ways, but I was surprised and delighted when a traveling exhibit of historic Breitling watches made a stop at my local Breitling Boutique in Chicago last week. The collection includes 17 vintage Breitling timepieces, from a co*ckpit clock to a Breitling Emergency.

While the collection started here in Chicago, it's on a roadshow throughout the States for the rest of the year, so it might be headed your way; Breitling also has similar traveling exhibits in other regions worldwide.

Since this is Breitling, the collection is clearly slanted towards chronographs and aviation watches. Léon Breitling founded the company in 1884, but died in 1914, passing it on to his son Gaston and then eventually Willy.

Gaston quickly made his mark on Breitling, introducing the first wristwatch chronograph with an independent pusher at 2 o'clock. This gave us the first monopusher chronographs. Breitling had one of these super early monopushers on display, but this slightly later example from the 1930s stood out to me:

An early Breitling monopusher with multiple scales on the dial. Before the wristwatch, Breitling had specialized in pocket-watch chronographs, but early monopushers like this represent its push into the wristwatch.

More specifically, chronographs at Breitling mean the Navitimer. But before the Navitimer, Breitling introduced the Chronomat in 1942. It added a slide rule to the chronograph that helps with math calculations in some mysterious way I'm still not sure I understand after having it explained to me 28 times. Nowadays Breitling has even taken to calling it the "original smartwatch." Seeing it next to the Navitimer, the throughlines are clear. While smaller and with a simpler dial, many of the other functional and aesthetic cues seen in the Navitimer were established in the Chronomat.

After introducing the Navitimer for the AOPA, Breitling made some tweaks: It added contrasting subdials; the bezel went from beaded to serrated; and around 1965, the Navitmer got the "Twin Jets" logo of two superimposed airplanes. As the design evolved, the Navitimer became more widely adopted, even by famous folks like Miles Davis (see him wearing one here in 1969), Jo Siffert, and Jim Clark.

The first Swiss wristwatch worn in space was the Breitling Cosmonaute that Scott Carpenter had on his wrist on May 24, 1962, when he became the second American astronaut to orbit Earth. Two years ago, Breitling revealed they had the exact watch. The Cosmonaute is a souped-up take on the Navitimer, slightly bigger and with a 24-hour dial to tell day from night in the vastness of space.

Cosmonaute, the first Swiss wristwatch in space.

An onboard aircraft clock.

A quick diversion from Breitling's tool and pilot's chronographs. In the 1940s, Breitling decided it also needed an elegant chronograph as an alternative to its large and rugged pilot's watches. The Breitling Premier was introduced in 1943 as the brand's elegant, stylish chronograph. Over the years, Breitling produced the Premier in dozens of varieties – steel, good, even steel, gold, even chrome, and with all kinds of dials. Cataloging it all would seem about as complicated as a slide rule, but last year the brand published an excellent book to celebrate the Premier's 80th anniversary last year.

This gold Premier on a matching mesh gold bracelet was a standout for me at the exhibit. Just look at those numerals and the crisp hallmark on the case.

The Top Time was Breitling's next effort to bring some style to the chronograph. Introduced in the 1960s, the Top Time line was designed to reach a younger audience. The case and dial designs are simple and sleek, especially compared to those slide rules. Obviously, they bear some resemblance to competitors from Rolex, Heuer, and UG, but the Top Time managed to carve out a lane for itself. Perhaps most famously, James Bond wore a Top Time (ref. 2002) in Thunderball.

The ice blue dial on this three-register Top Time feels exceedingly cool and modern.

Of course, it couldn't be all pilots and aviation and space for Breitling.The brand launched its dive watch, the SuperOcean, in 1957. Nowadays the SuperOcean is most known for its concave bezel and collectors love these things.

Front, from left: SuperOcean, Chronomat, and Top Time.

A vintage SuperOcean, immediately recognizable because of its concave bezel and large indices.

It wouldn't take long for Breitling to start thinking about how to bring its chronographs underwater. After the original SuperOcean, it soon introduced the SuperOcean "Slow Motion" Chronograph. It replaced the sweeping seconds hand with a chronograph minute counter for timing dives. The window at 6 o'clock has an indicator telling whether the chronograph is engaged or not. It's a watch we've covered on this site time and time again, but it's always a treat to see one.

Breitling SuperOcean "Slow Chronograph."

Breitling's Head of Heritage, Gianfranco Gentile, wearing a gold Navitimer.

In a world of quartz, Breitling introduced the Chronomat in 1983, an automatic watch designed for Italy's Frecce Tricolori aerobatics team. It's got those instantly recognizable rider tabs on the bezel in 15-minute increments. Gentile, an Italian, told me the Chronomat was everything when he was growing up in Italy.

You can't tell the modern story of Breitling without a Breitling Emergency:

An Emergency for EURAC.

And then there's the exact opposite of the Emergency. A vintage Breitling co*cktail watch in white gold. By the 1940s, Breitling made all kinds of co*cktail watches. You might expect something like this at a Patek, Omega or even Rolex exhibit, but perhaps not from Breitling.

Finally, much of Breitling's expertise in wristwatch chronographs during the 20th century culminated in "Project 99." This was the collaborative project between Breitling and Heuer, and later Hamilton and Dubois-Depraz to build an automatic chronograph (Jeff Stein's excellent article here). The result was the caliber 11, first unveiled in 1969. Breitling would put the automatic chronograph caliber in its "Chrono-matic" a name that Heuer and Hamilton also used on their early automatic chronos.

Thanks to the Breitling Boutique in Chicago and Breitling Head of Heritage Gianfranco Gentile for showing these watches and letting me take photos.

Breitling

Vintage

Just-because

Vintage-breitling