Passions Watch Exchange

About This Watch

Pre-owned. Comes with orig. boxes, COSC cert, & dated paper. This gorgeous Navitimer Cosmonuate is a one owner's watch that's just been polished to perfection. It is a rare model that rarely appears & was last shown in the 2011 Breitling catalogue. The new strap fitted to this watch is worth over S$500. Everything is perfect as new now while this late model has an interesting "Flyback" feature added which is seldom seen for Breitling chronographs.

The 24hrs dial takes a while to read time as you'd need to read the hours off the corresponding nos rather than the usual positions. Eg.6am is the usual 3 o'clock while 2pm (1400hrs) is the usual 7 o'clock.

Our pictures show an original 1960s gold plated Cosmonaute along side this modern day prodigy.

On 24^th May 1962, NASA Mercury Space Program astronaut Lt Cmdr Scott Carpenter orbited our Earth three times aboard the Aurora 7 capsule & a Breitling Navitimer with the 24-hours dial was worn on his wrist. This was the first wrist chronograph to travel in space and was named the Cosmonaute which is French for astronaut.

In 1959, Scott Carpenter was selected as one of the seven astronauts for the Mercury Space program which came to be known as the Mercury 7. He was already wearing a Breitling Navitimer but they needed a watch that tells time properly as it was not possible to distinguish day from night in space so he approached Breitling with the idea of a 24hrs dial. By 1961, the Navitimer was introduced with the 24hrs dial and uses the same Ref.806. It uses the manual winding Venus Calibre 178 movement but modified with 24hrs gearing.

Lt Cmdr Scott Carpenter received his watch just three days before the flight. After the 5hrs mission, the space capsule landed in the ocean and during recovery, his left arm was submerged in water & the non-waterproof Breitling was damaged. This watch was returned to the factory for repair but it was mysteriously lost and never recovered.

By June 1961, the name Cosmonaute was registered by Breitling with the Swiss Intellectual Property & the model formally received the Ref.809.

The watch that we have here is a modern production of the same model but received the important water-resistant case & an automatic movement with the date added. Navitimer series is the premium model with Breitling & has a far higher retail price than the popular Chronomats etc.

Further 3% discount for cash payment & no GST from us.