Advice about a 1806 Navitimer

Hello,

I am buying the remnants of a watchmaker's workshop, not much to see but I still found this:



The serial being 12543xx and with an all black bezel, am I right to assume this is an early 1969 model ?

I would then need a Buren 11 white movement and the early handset to rebuild it convincingly.

Any suggestion is welcomed...

If I recall correctly, the 1968 pre-series (prototypes) had a 1253xxx serial. The serial on your case should put it on the first production run of 1969. As you suggested yourself, I would also consider a cal. 11 and an early handset, those with "open" tops.

@Fallout Boy that chart is for the manual wind Navitimers, or am I missing something?

Great, thanks! That is the confirmation I needed.

Lucky me: I came back and asked harder about movement / hands and ... we found it in little boxes under a thick pile of dust. I'll report back with pictures but it is the same black/white handset and open ends, black date ring.

Is there a web page somewhere summarizing the 1806 variants? The 806 are well documented but the big cases... I mostly find for sale adverts when I search for watches nowadays.

You have found parts for a really cool watch!
Very very masculine, and hard to hide, so it will not go under the radar...😁

Not much info, but here are some links:
https://www.breitling.com/bb-en/arc...SdkXJw9xP26mSahBjuBskIqSCAx7US80Mfo9-TugT1IYe

https://www.timeline.watch/watch/breitling-navitimer-chrono-matic-1806/

Good luck with your project, and please do keep us updated!

Quick picture of this build your own Breitling kit:



Quite promising! Only the inner scale would have to be replaced. I'll see about the inside later.

I always ask- are you sure that’s everything? I went to a persons home to buy a record collection (daughter of an elderly man who was downsizing) and sitting on a table was a McIntosh MR71 tuner. I asked if she wanted that gone too and she said yes, take it. I then asked “are there any pieces that accompany it (tuners never live alone) and she said “come to think of it, there are some things in the attic, we just haven’t gotten around to cleaning that out yet” we went up to the attic and wrapped in plastic was the matching MA5100 integrated amp and a pair of Tannoy Monitor Silver speakers in Berkeley cabinets with cane grills. I asked how much she wanted for them and she said “I should be paying you for hauling this all away!”

Always ask- it’s not rude, it’s just how you ask that matters.


And as a side note- I offered to pay for everything I took from that house and told her they all had value- she declined. Considering the art movers were packing a wall side De Kooning- I don’t think they were hurting for the money.

Mine can't wait for his brother to be complete 😂. Good luck with the project.