In view of the high prices being asked for Bullheads, this might be a more affordable option. Especially for all the 70's fans...

Rare 1971 Breitling Cal. 12 Bullshead \ Pult - 2117

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rare-1971-Breitling-Cal-12-Bullshead-Pult-2117-/380338994543Purchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network

 

It would be nice if I could say I knew that, but I didn't. Thanks for the catch Dennis.

 

THAT is the rotor? I seriously didn't expect that...

 

It certainly makes the El Primero look like a dramatically better engineered and more elegant solution, its like they were wondering how best to transmit energy from a rotor behind the chronograph eccentrics to a mainspring in front of them, then gave up and jammed that in there lol

 

Have no doubt about that. Primero was at least six years in the making, originally probably intended for Zenith's centennial in 1965, but delayed till 1969 for fettling - its a well thought out and developed design. And remember, Primero comes with running seconds and the cal 11s don't - which is not a trivial omission when your movement is not an efficient autowinder. At the time that Primero was adding day-month-moonphase complications to the unchanged origianl, the cal 11 was back in the shop being debugged to cal. 11i, then cal. 12, etc. The Primero remains unchanged today.

 

Anyone would after that article. Jeff did a great job and he's always a good read, but that's entirely from the Cal. 11 perspective. He downplays the essentially makeshift nature of the cal 11 and its rush to production to the detriment of its technical performance.

It's an argument that has played out many times online - the happy news is that we have both calibers to enjoy. Now at this point, someone brings up Seiko and slams us for being Helveti-centric bigots.

 

I would agree that the Zenith/Movado design was technically the best and that is one of the reasons (along with the company secretly saving parts) why it is still around today, while the Seiko and Breitling/Heuer et al, movements were killed of during the quartz era of the 1970's.

However, we have to remember that watches were made in countries other than Switzerland. In fact, the Seiko was the first automatic chronograph available to the general public, although not necessarily the Western general public.

Here is an article that discusses all three of the contenders and why all were "first" in different ways:

Gisbert L. Brunner, WatchTime Magazine - "The Great Race of '69" - December 2009 Issue, Page 113

It is also the only one of the three auto chronos introduced in 1969 that employed a vertical clutch system. I've read that the Seiko is one of the only chronographs where the stopwatch mechanism should be left running full time. Supposed to be better for the health of the movement, but I can't remember why.

There were other "bullhead" Chronomatic movements made, like this one from Bulova:



I have one of these Chronomatics from a different US company -- Gruen:



Very nice Breitling, don't think I've seen one like that before,
gatorcpa