![vintage breitling serial numbers vintage breitling serial numbers](http://www.vintage-breitling.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/1.jpg)
However, this two register design would largely stick around through the 1950s as this watch continued to increase in popularity, eventually in the 1960s getting some small updates like an arrow marker at 12 o’clock. There’s also a very rare Chronomat from 1946 with an additional 12-hour sub-dial. Historically, the Breitling Chronomat was known for its complicated chronograph dials, the very first Breitling Chronomat from the 1940s featured two sub-dials at 3 and 9 o’clock. The chronograph dial is exclusively found on Breitling’s larger Chronomat watches, which all currently have 42mm cases. Today, there are two main types of dials on the Breitling Chronomat – the chronograph dial with three sub-dials situated at 3, 6, and 9 o’clock, and the simpler time-and-date dial that features baton indexes and a date window at the 6-o’clock location.
#Vintage breitling serial numbers update#
In 2004, Breitling even went on to update the line again, this time introducing the Chronomat Evolution in 2004 and in 2009, reinventing the watch with the Caliber B01, Breitling’s first entirely in-house movement. In fact, the watch wouldn’t be brought back until 1984, this time geared entirely towards pilots rather than scientists.ĭespite the change, the Chronomat is now one of Breitling’s most famous watches and easily one of its consistent best sellers. However, the company was not lost and relaunched in 1980 – just without the Chronomat in its lineup. For Breitling, like many other legacy watchmakers at the time, the quartz crisis was detrimental to business, forcing the company to go up for sale in 1979. Over the years, there have been many iterations of the Chronomat, from the first-ever automatic chronograph in the late 1960s to the quartz version during the infamous quartz crisis of the 1970s. The original Breitling Chronomat watches featured slide rule bezels and were the first models from the brand to feature this unique characteristic that has since become the signature design element of the Navitimer collection.
![vintage breitling serial numbers vintage breitling serial numbers](https://www.keepthetime.com/thefuture/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/breitling-watch-date-3.jpg)
The Chronomat was one of Breitling’s very first tool watches, but the watchmaker wanted to further distinguish this model from all the other pilot’s watches of the time, so the brand marketed it towards the scientific community like engineers and mathematicians (hence its “Chronomat” name – a combination of the words “chronograph for mathematicians”).
![vintage breitling serial numbers vintage breitling serial numbers](https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0275/6168/9201/files/breitlingwatch2_480x480.jpg)
Even the British Royal Air Force was a customer of Breitling during WWII and had some of its bombers and fighter jets outfitted with Breitling dashboard clocks. During this time Willy was also focusing much of the company’s efforts on creating watches for pilots and clocks for airplanes. The next decade was marked by great advances in chronographs and stopwatches, including timers with tachymeter scales to measure speeds and pulsometers for doctors to measure pulse rates.Įventually, Willy Breitling (the founder’s grandson) had taken over the company, continuing his grandfather’s advances in chronographs and patenting the world’s first wrist chronograph with two pushers, which would ultimately lay the groundwork for the Chronomat in 1940. By 1899, Breitling had even obtained a patent for a simplified chronograph pocket watch and by 1892, the workshop had expanded into a new factory in La Chaux-de-Fonds with 60 employees. Imier, Switzerland, mainly focusing on building chronographs. 8 Breitling Chronomat Frequently Asked Questionsīreitling was established in 1884 by Léon Breitling in St.