Breitling 125th Anniversary LE Super Ocean Heritage Chronos
Breitling just unveiled three limited edition timepieces within their Super Ocean Heritage Chronograph collection. To celebrate the 125th anniversary of Breitling, 1000 pieces will be offered for each version.
This Super Ocean watch features the same 46 mm stainless steel case and 300 meter water-resistance as the current production models. The movement is also very similar, although the current model features a Valjoux 7750, versus a 7753 Valjoux in this version. The main difference between the two base calibers is the chronograph counter configuration. On the 7750 (Breitling Caliber 13) the chronograph counters are at 12, 9 and 6 o'clock. Whereas on the 7753 (Breitling Caliber 23), the chronograph counters are at 3, 6 and 9 o'clock. However Breitling has modified the 7753 movement to display the date in place of the standard 6 o'clock hour chronograph counter.
As is the case with all of Breitling's professional luxury watches, this watch has been tested by the COSC and is officially certified as a chronometer. Watch testing is important and the COSC (Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute) is the most widely used 3rd party certification in the watch industry. However, the more important aspect of watch quality in luxury watches is not necessarily the quality of testing, but the quality of the movement. Luxury watch companies that do not already produce everything in-house, are moving towards manufacture movements to show their unique know-how. This is what people paying five, ten or twenty grand for a watch want. Hopefully we will see more in-house movements from Breitling, like the new manufacture Caliber B01, in future models. This to me, is far more important than 3rd party quality tests.
