PRICE
Sold
WATCH SCORE
8,7 / 10
KEY FEATURES
Rare version with 2 counters
Published in the Navitimer Story book
SERVICES INCLUDED
CERTIFICATION REPORT
BLOCKCHAIN CERTIFICATE
APPRAISAL BOOK
EXTRACT OF ARCHIVES
At the end of 1972, a new standard-size manual-wound Navitimer (Valjoux 7740) was produced with a significant novel feature: a date function displayed through an aperture near 4 o’clock. It was the last mechanical Navitimer of the Willy Breitling era…
There is a rare variant of this Navitimer date with three counters, the Reference 7806-S, which has only two counters as the running seconds counter has been removed, meaning that the watch is not animated when the chronograph is not activated.
The watch presented here for sale is a very nice example of such a rare version. All its parts are conform and the watch is in very good condition.
Furthermore, it has been published in the Navitimer Story book (p. 167), which will be offered with the watch.
About the model
In 1952, the US Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (abbreviated AOPA) contacted Breitling to develop a chronograph that would allow its members to perform all kinds of calculations necessary in flight: average speed, fuel consumption, distance, conversion kilometers in miles.
These challenging requirements were made possible by a logarithmic slide rule integrated into a rotating bezel. The NAVITIMER was born, with presumably the first examples produced in 1954.
The very first Navitimers were fitted with a Valjoux 72 calibre, quickly replaced by the Venus 178 (reference 806). The dials were completely black and there were several variations of inscriptions, some without the name BREITLING, but all had the applied gold AOPA wings.
In 1963, readability was improved with contrasting white/silver subdials and the replacement of Arabic numerals by indexes (only the 12 was kept). The beaded bezel was replaced about a year later with a milled edge bezel.
Around 1965, Breitling introduced its Twin-Jet logo.
