Breitling will present special all-white 'Ice' versions of the Breitling Bentley GT and Breitling Bentley GT Racing chronographs at Baselworld 2011.

These timepieces can fit any wrist size as they are more compact than the other Breitling for Bentley models. They also offer a more distinctive and instantly recognizable appearance. The Ice White dial (an exclusive Bentley livery color) is complemented with a rubber strap in the same shade. These dials, highlighted by rimmed counters, are reminiscent of the dashboards of Bentley Grand Tourers.

The bezel, with its knurled motif, is inspired by the marque’s control buttons, says WatchTime. The "chassis" of the Breitling Bentley GT Ice chronograph has a steel case with an all-polished finish. The Bentley GT Racing Ice version stands out with its finishes that alternate between satin-brushed upper surfaces and polished sides.

Its caseback carries a medallion with the outline of the Bentley Continental GT, a quintessential powerful grand tourer. The watches are equipped with the self-winding Breitling Calibre 13B chronograph movement, chronometer-certified by the COSC. They also feature a calendar that displays the day and date through a big twin aperture at three o’clock. The Breitling Bentley GT Ice and Breitling Bentley GT Racing Ice each have a price tag of $7,165.

The Breitling for Bentley collection welcomes a new one-of-a-kind model, dedicated to the founder of the prestigious British car manufacturer. The Breitling Bentley Masterpiece Grande Complication pocket-watch was unveiled at Baselworld 2010.

Each year, Breitling reaches a new peak in its art by creating a paragon of fine watchmaking named Bentley Masterpiece: a mechanical magnum opus combining tradition, performances and exquisite craftsmanship. The 2010 vintage is a pocket-watch combining two of the most sophisticated complications in the horological repertoire: a perpetual calendar (displaying the date, day, month, leap years and moon phases) that takes account of the quadrennial occurrence of February 29th; and a minute repeater striking the hours, quarters and minutes on demand.

Details of the Breitling Bentley Masterpiece

The movement, based on a late 19th century blank of which Breitling found just a few examples in its workshops, comprises almost 700 parts. Its refined finishing - hand polishing, chamfering, and Côtes de Genève - is visible through a transparent caseback. In tribute to Walter Owen Bentley, the cover of the 18-carat yellow gold case is adorned with an engraving depicting him at the wheel of one of his racing models. This portrait is accompanied by the famous «W.O.» initials by which the engineers and craftsmen of the British firm - like all devotees of fine automobiles - still refer to the much revered founder of Bentley.

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MODEL 973A 996A OEM BREITLING BENTLEY MARK VI 22 18 STAINLESS STEEL LINK
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MODEL A2836212 B844 ELEGANT WATCHES RARE BREITLING BENTLEY FLYING B WATCH
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While exclusivity comes at a price, it also brings its share of privileges. Each Mulliner Tourbillon chronograph is customised according to the wishes of its future owner, who is free to choose the case material (platinum, yellow gold, rose gold or white gold), the dial colour or the shade of the crocodile leather strap. Not forgetting the precious wooden ring on the caseback, offered in a choice of six veneers.

This mechanical masterpiece has an exceptional heart in the shape of hand-wound Breitling Calibre 18B, a tourbillon chronograph movement exclusive to Breitling for Bentley. It is also equipped with the original 30-second chronograph mechanism with 15-minute totalizer and pointer-type date display.

Each Bentley limousine that emerges from the Mulliner workshops is unique. Such is also true of the Mulliner Tourbillon chronograph, thus guaranteeing its owner the tranquil assurance of never seeing an identical watch.

Stainless steel case with a stainless steel bracelet with 18kt gold center links.

Unidirectional stainless steel and 18ktgold bezel.

Blue dial with luminous hands and luminous stick hour markers.

Minute markers. tachometer scale around the outer rim.

Luminiscent hands and dial markers.

Chronograph three gold sub-dials displaying: 60 seconds, 30 minutes and 12 hours.

Automatic movement.

Scratch resistant glareproof sapphire crystal.

Case diameter: 43.70mm. Case thickness: 17.10mm. Deployment clasp. Water resistant at 300 meters / 1000 feet.

Functions: hours/ minutes/ seconds/ date/ chronograph/ tachometer/ luminescent mobile hour marker. Breitling Chronomat Mens Watch B1335611-C646TT

• Details
• Description
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Breitling Chronomat Mens Watch B1335611-C646TT List Price: $9,300.00

Description

Stainless steel case with a stainless steel bracelet with 18kt gold center links. Unidirectional stainless steel and 18ktgold bezel. Blue dial with luminous hands and luminous stick hour markers. Minute markerss. tachymeter scale around the outer rim. Luminiscent hands and dial markers. Date display at 3 o'clock position. Chronograph three gold sub-dials displaying: 60 seconds, 30 minutes and 12 hours. Automatic movement. Scratch resistant glareproof sapphire crystal. Case diameter: 43.70mm. Case thickness: 17.10mm. Deployment clasp. Water resistant at 300 meters / 1000 feet. Functions: hours/ minutes/ seconds/ date/ chronograph/ tachometer/ luminescent mobile hour marker. Breitling Chronomat Mens Watch B1335611-C646TT

Reviews

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PARIS — Luxury watchmakers are flying high again, buoyed by a spectacular recovery in sales last year, and the optimism reflected in a flood of new models on show at the Salon de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva this week is also palpable in vintage watch salerooms.

For many, last year marked a full recovery from the global crisis that hit the market in 2008.
In the new watch sector, figures tallied and estimated by the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry indicate that the Swiss industry’s export sales for the whole of last year probably reached 16 billion Swiss francs, or $16.5 billion, their second-highest level ever and just short of the record 17 billion francs achieved in 2007, according to Jean-Daniel Pasche, the federation’s president.
In the reseller’s market, the global auction houses also had an impressive year.

For Christie’s, global watch sales in 2010 reached $91.2 million, the highest ever reported by an auction house in the watch category, topping the previous record of $88 million, set by Christie’s in 2007.

“This was quite a spectacular year, proving that watches are as hot as ever,” said Aurel Bacs, international head of watches at Christie’s, in an interview from Geneva.
“Regardless of the state of world economies, watches have increased in popularity among the planet’s population,” Mr. Bacs added.

For Sotheby’s, global sales topped $40 million, nearly doubling the previous year’s total of $20.6 million, in line with what Geoffroy Ader, European head of watches, described as a stellar year for auctions in all categories.
“We were fortunate to catch the interest of collectors from around the globe, with timepieces for every taste and every type of collector,” Mr. Ader said in Geneva.

Smaller, more specialist houses, in contrast, fared less well. Antiquorum ended 2010 with $45.8 million in global watch sales, down nearly 30 percent from $65.2 million in 2009, despite holding the same number of auctions.
“Antiquorum restructured on a global basis in 2010, resulting in a temporary, and expected, downturn in turnover,” said Charles Tearle, a director of Antiquorum New York.

Still, Mr. Tearle said he shared the general optimism about current trends. “Now the restructuring is complete, and we expect to see an increase in global results for 2011,” he said.

Also on the downside, Patrizzi & Co. Auctioneers, the house created by Antiquorum’s former owner, Osvaldo Patrizzi, ended operations in Geneva and New York in late 2010, undone mainly by problems with its online bidding system, a core part of its competitive strategy.

Mr. Patrizzi plans to resume operations in Hong Kong sometime this year, focusing on the Chinese market, said Leo Verhoeven, its chief financial officer.

One brand, Patek Philippe, was overwhelmingly responsible for raising watch sale revenues last year, auction house tallies show.
Christie’s reported that it sold five watches last year that fetched more than $1 million — two more than in 2009 and all of them Patek Philippes.

The highest grossing lot last year was a 1943 Patek Philippe reference 1527, a gold perpetual calendar wristwatch that sold in May at a Christie’s Geneva sale for 6.25 million francs.

Sotheby’s did well in the historic watch category, selling a Cartier desk timepiece dated 1926 for £79,250, or $125,000 — 10 times its estimate — in London in December. It also sold a Rolex “Paul Newman” Daytona stainless steel wristwatch, estimated at 60,000 to 80,000 francs, for 464,500 francs in Geneva in November.

The relatively swift recovery of the watch market demonstrated that the earlier slide reflected more a generalized loss of confidence during the financial crisis than a serious crisis of overvaluation, Mr. Bacs said, explaining that starting in autumn 2008, the global economic downturn dampened sellers’ confidence, with consignors hesitating to part with their timepieces.

“After a difficult fall 2008, marked by Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy and later the Madoff affair, we were faced with serious seller hesitation to consign,” he said. “No one knew how badly things could turn out.”

Despite a difficult second half of 2008, Christie’s managed to end the year with $70.2 million in global watch sales, against Sotheby’s $43 million. The downward trend continued in 2009, with $67.2 million at Christie’s and $20.6 million at Sotheby’s.
“Still, there was never any indication of waning buyer’s interest even during the crisis,” Mr. Bacs said.

While financial markets remained in turmoil, Christie’s managed to obtain the consignment of several important private watch collections, including the “Connoisseur’s Vision” collection secured in the summer of 2009.

“The decision to sell that collection was made by the owner in 2009, based on that year’s half-year results, while the world was traversing a severe financial crisis,” Mr. Bacs said. “The spring of 2009 was a definite turning point in our market.”

The Connoisseur’s Vision collection, sold in a four-part auction starting in autumn 2009 and culminating in the record-breaking sale of the Patek Philippe for $5.7 million last spring, achieved a total of $19 million, making it the most valuable private collection of wristwatches ever sold at auction.

For Christie’s, that consignment, by itself, was a sign of the independence of the watch market from global economic conditions.
“There is correlation between the watch market and the economy — but not necessarily parallel behavior,” Mr. Bacs said. “In some instances, the worse the economy is faring, the better certain markets will do. When confidence is undermined in the financial markets, investors take a closer look at art, watches, diamonds or real estate as an alternative investment class.”

Last year, the highest increase in demand for new watches, according to the Swiss watch industry figures, came from Greater China, with Hong Kong’s share of Swiss watch exports exceeding 2.8 billion francs in 2010 — an increase of about 46 percent compared with 2009 — and mainland China importing watches valued at over 966 million francs, nearly 55 percent more than the previous year.
In the resale market, as reflected in the major auction houses, a similar phenomenon occurred.

“Whatever the impact of the global crisis, we were more than compensated by the demand that came out of China,” said Mr. Bacs, of Christie’s.

For Sotheby’s, too, “the largest growth in demand for auction watches in 2010 came out of Greater China,” Mr. Ader said.
Bidder registrations allow auction houses to assess the geographic provenance of buyers and bidders in a sale.

“Ten years ago, there were no Chinese bidders at watch auctions,” Mr. Bacs noted. “At Christie’s last Geneva auction, of the 800 registered bidders, 50 percent were Asian, and a quarter from mainland China. Our Hong Kong sales have an even a higher percentage.”

Mr. Tearle of Antiquorum reported a similar trend. “We have seen a 20 percent increase in Asian bidders over the last two years,” he said.

To accommodate the increase in Asian participation, Antiquorum held two Hong Kong auctions last year, up from just one in 2009, posting a sales total of $10.3 million in that venue, double its results in the previous year.
This year, Antiquorum plans to add one more Hong Kong sale to its calendar, while also continuing to preview its New York and Geneva sales in Asia.

If economic predictions are accurate, the upward trend in the watch market should continue beyond this year. The retailing and consumer products sectors, including watches and other luxury goods, will remain “strong and steady” in Asia, according to a report issued in December by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which predicts an average 6 percent growth in those Asia-Pacific markets through 2014.

“For many collectors, parking their funds in a fine timepiece is an intelligent choice,” Mr. Bacs said. “With a fine Patek Philippe, an exceptional Rolex, a rare Lange & Söhne, in limited series and good condition, how wrong can you go?”

The zest of the new Breitling watch is the brand’s exclusive, patented magnetic push-piece system concealed inside the case. The system allows to activate the timepiece through the metal case with no direct mechanical contact. Most chronograph watches cannot be activated while diving, but this system provides the Avenger Seawolf Chrono with the total water-resistance and functionality at a record 1,000-meter depth.

The Breitling watch also boasts the brand’s exclusive thermocompensated SuperQuartz TM movement, Breitling 73 calibre. The outstanding COSC-certified mechanism offers the precision ten times greater than the precision provided by common quartz movements. The SuperQuartz TM movement measures times to 1/10 of a second and indicates intermediary times.

The watch provides a range of useful functions: hours, minutes, seconds, date, split-seconds chronograph, and direction memory.

The steel case of the Avenger Seawolf Chrono measures 45.4 mm in diameter and is provided with ultra-resistant carbon coating. The case incorporates a ratcheted unidirectional rotating bezel. The face of the watch is shielded by a convex sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on both sides.

The Breitling watch demonstrates a flange with the compass card to be used for memorizing directions above and below water.

The volcano black dial is completed with luminescent hour-markers and hands, including the central direct-drive seconds-hand and split-seconds hand. You will notice the 12-hour chronograph counter at 10 o’clock, while the 1/10-second counter is positioned at 2 o’clock. The date window is found at 4 o’clock.

The Breitling Avenger Seawolf Chrono Blacksteel watch, reviewed by Watches.InfoNIAC.com, is presented on the brand’s signature black Diver Pro rubber strap or Ocean Racer strap with holes. The bold timepiece will be available in a limited number of 2,000 pieces.

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3 Breitling Chronograph adverts 1968 72 Navitimer Top Time Chronomatic etc
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NEW BREITLING CROCO TEXTURED LIGHT BLUE LEATHER SWISS WATCH STRAP 18MM WIDE 999P
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BREITLING DARK GREEN CROCO LEATHER STRAP SWISS MADE WATCH STRAP 18MM WIDE P513
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Breitling has unveiled its most recent horologic innovation to the amazement of the watch industry. The new B01 chronograph movement is the luxury watchmaker's first completely in-house manufactured complication. The new features in this movement distinguish it from any other Swiss movement on the market and set a new bench mark for watch-making excellence.
Breitling has always shared a close and essential relationship with aviation, sports, and industry. It is no surprise that the maker of the first wrist chronograph and first fully automatic chronograph would pursue a higher standard of precision in its designer timepieces. By appropriating itself of the entire movement manufacturing process for the B01, Breitling can now oversee every detail of the chronograph's development.

The B01 project has created a revolutionary specialized assembly process that guarantees the integrity of each watch's quality. Movement along the assembly chain is conducted by an ultra sophisticated computer program that monitors and routes each movement throughout the various paths of assembly. The program alternates the movement's components in two phases. The first phase is fully automated and conducted exclusively by precise robotic arms. This ensures a better quality product as these machines have greater precision than a human hand. The second phase directs the components of the movement to a separate facility where partial manual assembly is required. Upon exiting the assembly chain, the movements are sent to the C.O.S.C. for extremely rigorous testing and analyzes.

The caliber B01 is available exclusively in its C.O.S.C certified version, with accompanying documentation to prove its clearance of highly meticulous precision testing. It is considered a high frequency movement at 28,800 vibrations per hour. The new Chronomat B01 features this new movement, and encases it beautifully in stainless steel, steel & gold, or 18k rose gold. This timepiece has been developed with endurance in mind and boasts 500 meters of water resistance. Another feature that has created excitement over this new Breitling movement is an optimized column-wheel device that provides a clean start/stop function without a jump of the hand. The movement is equipped with a 70 hour reserve which is an impressive feat considering its sleek shape. A patented self setting device for the resetting hammers does away with the traditional need to have a watchmaker correct each individual movement.

As the crowning achievement of this great watch manufacturer's 125th anniversary, the caliber B01 ushers in a new era for chronograph movements, and validates Breitling as the world leader in precision time-keeping instruments for professionals.
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patrick_C_Bedford

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Breitling Chronomat B01 SS Pilot Bracelet Ref AB011012 B967 BEST DEAL ON EBAY
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Breitling Chronomat B01 Flying Fish Black Dial Automatic Mens Watch
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Breitling Chronomat B01 Mother of Pearl Diamond Mens Watch AB0110AA G686SS
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The difference between a $500 watch and a $50,000 one is often in the movement.

The ground floor of the Roger Dubuis factory, a top-tier manufacturer specializing in artistically extroverted timepieces, comes as a shock. This is one of Geneva's temples of haute horlogerie, a place where you'd expect the loudest sound to be the nearly inaudible cricket-song of a hand file against brass. But in this gigantic room blue- and white-coated technicians tend enormous, sleek machines. The air is redolent of oil and coolant, the ceiling is strung with pipes and conduit, and, here and there, warning signs and bundled cables testify to the huge amounts of electricity being consumed.

It's in a room like this that virtually every watch, from the humblest $100 automatic to the costliest limited-edition mechanical marvel, starts its life. The components are made by supersophisticated industrial robots--computer-guided automatic milling machines and spark-erosion fabricators. Which brings up a question: If this is so, why do watch prices range from less than the cost of a decent lunch to more than that of a comfortable suburban house?

The answer lies one floor up, where those raw parts undergo a dramatic transformation. Here the workers wear blue or white coats, too, but otherwise you've gone back in time. There are no robots, only tools that would be recognized by a watchmaker from a century ago. At one workbench, a woman uses a spinning boxwood disk to polish a delicate sine wave curve into the flanks of tiny brass-gear teeth. Nearby, another woman passes a movement repeatedly under a spinning disk charged with jeweler's rouge. As she does so rows of gleaming parallel stripes appear, like ripples in a frozen pond; these are the famous Geneva stripes, or Côtes de Genève, one of the signature movement decorations of the Genevan school of watch decorating. At yet another workstation, a young man works with painstaking slowness to give a tiny irregular movement bridge a beveled flank so that it catches light like the facet of a diamond. Each stroke is done with the care of a vascular surgeon stitching shut a hair-thin blood vessel.

These are the finisseurs (finishers), and it's their time-consuming, labor-intensive work that holds the answer to the question I posed earlier. The art of movement decoration has been part of watchmaking since the first table clocks were made during the Renaissance. Over the centuries national style developed: the reserved gilt-and–blued steel stolidity of English chronometers; the glitteringly sensuous Genevan approach; the superbly flat dress pocket watches of France, made as thin as possible so as to avoid disrupting the tailored fit of a waistcoat. Whatever the style, the finish of a watch movement was one of the purest expressions of a craftsman's pride, as in most cases nobody but the watchmaker himself even knew it was there.

Which is still the case: An appreciation of finishing is an insider passion even today. But a basic understanding of it can give the nonfanatic a new perspective on the price-value relationship of timepieces. Here are key points to remember.
Respect the robots. A modern CNC cutter or spark- erosion machine can turn out parts that without further finishing can be assembled into high-precision micromachines. The 'bots make possible entry-level mechanical watches from Swatch, Seiko, Citizen, Orient, and Timex of a precision that would have been impossible at such a price point (often less than $500) a few decades ago.
More finishing does not mean more accuracy. Top-grade hand-finishing is really the connoisseur's delight--beauty in the eye of the beholder who knows how to recognize it.

Quality of finish and price tag don't always parallel. If a particular model becomes a collectors' darling (like the stainless steel Rolex Daytona chronograph), or if a brand is just plain hot, price follows suit, even if the watch has little or no hand-finishing.
Precious metals and gemstones change the equation. A machine-finished watch with one or both can cost more than one that is hand-finished. Rarity and peculiar provenance can make a watch expensive regardless of finishing.
Absent those factors, higher price means more finishing. A $10,000 watch, as a rule, has more hand-finishing than a $6,000 one.
At the high end, it's the finisseur. His painstaking work bestows a pedigree price. A $1,000 chronograph with industrial finishing becomes a $25,000 one with hand-finishing.

Above that, complication comes into play. At the very high end, it drives price as much as finishing.
Finally, finishing is a three-tiered cake: basic (robot), machine, and hand. Mechanical watches that sell for less than $1,000 compose the base. They have little or no finish beyond that produced by the robots that manufacture the movement. In the middle ($1,000–$12,000) are mechanical models with varying degrees of machine-executed decorative finish: attractive beveling, blued-finish screws, gleaming countersinks, and engraving. Watches at the upper end of this layer also have some hand-finishing. In the top tier ($12,000 and up) hand-finishing starts to predominate. North of $20,000, you're getting the full-on haute treatment, horology's equivalent of haute couture. A premium-grade movement like Vacheron's caliber 1400, the caliber 215 from Patek, or the caliber 3120 automatic from Audemars Piguet, is a singular object: The hand-finishing means no two are exactly alike.

And the expense is huge. The finest haute horlogerie brands train most of their finisseurs in-house. Just learning how to bevel a flank properly can take anywhere from one to one-and-a-half years. Learning how to black-polish steel to a mirror finish, hand-engrave a rotor, or apply Geneva stripes of just the right depth requires a touch that has to be passed down directly--there are few manuals to go by.

It's fair to ask why a top-notch timepiece is so expensive. But when you multiply the number of hours it takes to hand-finish just one part--more than half a day in some cases--by the number of components in the movement and then by the number of years it takes to learn how to finish a piece of metal the size of a fly antenna, it's easier to see how the price starts to add up. It's the hundreds of hours of human skill concentrated in a cubic centimeter.

Images of this Breiting really do not do it justice. You have wear it appreciate the absolute ease of legibility and well it compliments most any attire. When looking at this watch, you have to understand part of it is Breiting's attempt to create a handsome diving watch unique from the gold standard which is the Rolex Submariner. While the Rolex is handsome watch by all measures, the Breiting arguably takes a more masculine approach with this diving watch from the company that specializes in dead-on reliability for pilots, drivers, and anyone else needing a trusted time keeper and measuring device at their side.

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MENS BREITLING SUPEROCEAN EDITION HERITAGE 46 AUTOMATIC STAINLESS STEEL WATCH
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BREITLING SUPEROCEAN
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BREITLING SWISS SUPEROCEAN BLUE DIAL BEZEL 200M 660F CHRONOMETER STEEL WATCH MEN
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As investors continue to ponder whether the recovery in markets is sustainable, some may find that this is the time to put their money in an asset class that lasts.

The downturn has hit the luxury watch market hard. Luxury watch exports from Switzerland, where many of the premium brands are manufactured, have seen a decline of 25 percent over the past 9 months and the slump in demand was especially severe for watches made of precious metals.

However, the picture for "retail" luxury watches seems to bear little resemblance with the "collectible" luxury watch markets for brands such as Patek Philippe, Jaeger Le Coultre or Vacheron Constantin.

Sales of luxury collectible watches have been more resilient in the crisis and have shown buoyant demand as old and new investors fled into the prestigious asset class. Auctions held in May by auctioneers like Antiquorum, Sotheby's and Christie's clocked up a total of 90 million francs.

At a recent collectors' wristwatches auction held by auctioneer Antiquorum in Geneva, the sale of a platinum Patek Philippe set a new world record for its kind and sold for 114 000 Swiss francs ($114,000), while other auctions have seen prices for rare time pieces even reach the million dollar mark in the last several years.
Timing your purchase of a collectible watch may be more important than ever. Jon Cox from Kepler Capital Markets says collectible watches may also offer inflation protection as investors may be worried of higher price levels in the future. He adds that in some countries, a Rolex is even considered a currency.

Investors wishing to avoid the volatility of traditional asset classes, such as stocks or commodities, may find watches are a timeless investment. But as with many things in life, this investment is one for the long-term and requires investors’ patience: the value of collectible watches increases with time.

While age for most other asset classes is associated with depreciation and loss of value, a collectible watch investment ticks differently. The older a timepiece is, the more value it usually holds.

A word of caution for those who hope to make a quick profit: the market for collectible watches is very illiquid as these valuable timepieces are either passed on from one generation to the next or can only be bought and resold at auctions.

The return, and hence the retail price of a watch depends on many factors, beyond just the design and the quality.

Many experts cite the emotional value as being one of the most essential characteristics of a watches’ price: how much a luxury watch will fetch often purely depends on how much a buyer is willing to pay.

Tips for investing in collectible watches:
• Reputation is key: Buy a brand with a long history and excellent reputation
• Age does matter: Timepieces’ value increase with its age. Signs of wear and tear show a watch is authentic and has history, while a polishing only reduces a watches’ value
• Rarity drives valuation higher: The fewer time pieces of one series exist, the more it will be able to fetch in an auction
• Quality is King: As with other assets, the quality of the collectible watch, including its movement, are essential to its value

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