While talking about the replica watch Breitling, aviation comes to mind immediately, this is not just because of the wings in its logo. Even before launching the Navitimer in the early 1950s, the company had provided necessary navigation tools to pilots, and was used in different occasions such as the cockpits of the British RAF. On another hand though, Breitling’s contribution to diving watches is often denied, and unfairly so. But by taking a deeper look at the detailed history of the SuperOcean, a pioneering line of watches which introduced no less than the first known reverse panda dial chronograph and a fascinating “slow counter” mechanism, someone is looking to make this wrong.
The two first replicas of the SuperOcean are now auction highlights, launched in 1957, the SuperOcean extended Breitling’s reach beyond the skies, matching the blossoming demand for diving watches that had led Blancpain and Rolex to create the Fifty Fathoms and the Submariner just several years before. Their current success can be explained by their special look as well that neither my friend Phil nor I can resist. After all, try to find the same long and pointy indexes on any watch other than the SuperOcean, which was incidentally the first chronograph to ever offer a reverse panda dial.
As a Frenchman, there is another thing which I truly appreciate about vintage Breitling watches: they sometimes come with a second signature from one of their French retailers from the time, either Uti or Lip. This is the case for the SuperOcean presented in detail in the article found here; to be fair, even with a basic dial, the reference 2005 is a pretty amazing watch. Launched in the 1960s, the watch went for a less extreme look than its predecessors, and offered a degree of legibility than many other chronographs would envy. Yes, despite appearances, it is actually a chronograph, with a single minute hand to measure the duration of a dive – since seconds are not important to find out your air reserve underwater, there is no seconds counter.
The genius of this watch boils down to its indicator at six o’clock, which shows whether the chronograph is engaged or not. You get a yellow dot when the chronograph is on and a black one when it is inactive. The fake Breitling heavily verified the Venus 188 movement so that it would offer this “slow counter” and only measure the elapsed minutes in the clearest way possible for its users, for which it was a matter of life and death.
