The Tropical Navitimer That Was Never Meant To Be

Welcome to the Jungle

On the left is a blue dialed Breitling Navitimer reference A30022, and on the right is also another blue dialed Breitling Navitimer of the same reference. The main difference was one spent its life in the US, and the other spent its life in South Africa.

The Dress of February 26th, 2015

Reference A30022, often referred to as the Navitimer 92 was a Breitling originally released in the early 1990’s with a perfectly proportioned 38mm case. Chances are you’ve probably seen one online, but have yet to see one in person. The majority of modern Navitimers are ostentatious and marred by excessively large cases. But this reference was an exception, and it continues to be an exception.

The steel only ref. A30022 was only ever released in a gloss black dial or a sunburst blue variant. What you see above isn’t an illusion. It’s a dial that’s been battered by the South African sun for at least 2 decades.

Not all dials are meant to patina, and if they do, they take on unique characteristics. No two dials with patina develop the same way. They’re snowflakes in a desert storm.

The Rainforest & Its Hidden Fruit

It was the late spring of 2020 in the thick of the pandemic, when I was scouring online for the Navitimer 92. I was about to close my laptop and call it a night when I stumbled upon a beat up looking Navitimer with features unlike others that I have previously seen. At this point on my hunt, I had seen no fewer than 40 of these watches go through the grey market, but none with a sunburst gold dial.

At first, I thought that it had been a special limited edition release, but further research had revealed that the original sunburst blue dial had develop into a tropical sunburst gold patina. It was for sale from a watch dealer from South Africa. At this point I’ve had my fair share of experiences from buying watches from SA, but I was still hesitant.

The watch itself at a glance seemed to be definitely a timepiece that served as a daily beater, but nothing abnormal about it stood out to me aside the mesmerizing dial. The listed price was below market value. I knew I had to decisively empty my checking account, before someone else could recognize what it is and pulls the trigger.

The Nigerian Prince Needs Your Help (& So Do I)

Prior to buying the watch, I sent a quick message to the dealer asking about the state of the movement seeing how beat up it had looked. All I wanted to know was if the watch chronograph was functional. A South African woman by the name of Angelique was extremely gracious, and told me she would talk to her manager to confirm the details. A week had transpired before she would tell me that the Breitling needed to be sent to a third party watchmaker as their primary business was in jewelry.

After another week, Angelique had informed me that the Watchmaker had determined that the Chronograph was in fact not functioning properly. The Chronograph seconds hand would stop randomly during its operation, and it would intermittently fail to reset to zero. She assured me that the company would pay to have it serviced which would require another 2 weeks.

It had been a full month of communication, and in watch-waiting years it’s equivalent to a decade and a half. South Africa at the time was suffering from outbreaks and strict lock-downs were in place. I didn’t want to be that overly needy person when people were actually suffering so I waited without further commentary.

A month and a half more passed and I was starting to doubt whether the watch actually existed or if the images were pulled off the internet from a previous sale. I also began to question legitimacy of the well-spoken & grammatically perfect Angelique. To ensure that I would have the first right to buy the watch, I had to pay a deposit of $600 USD. Financially I was already locked in and invested in the deal.

When I finally inquired about the status of the watch, she informed me she would have to reach out to the watchmaker to check up on the status of the service work being done. Red flags immediately illuminated in my mind. I had yet to be scammed when dealing with online watch purchases, and I intended to keep it that way. She had initially promised me to have it serviced by a set date; it was now weeks beyond that specified time frame. My situation felt eerily similar to someone being catfished, with dates and promises lacking fulfillment in every degree.

A few days more passed by and she informed me that the watchmaker had been working on my watch but unfortunately was unable to rectify the problem with the Chronograph.

To keep this article brief it was a total of three months of having their watchmaker “fix” the watch, to having it stop randomly during in house testing, to having my transaction cancelled without refund due to a system glitch, to making multiple phone calls to the someone with a 10 hour time difference, to having the watchmaker give up completely on it, and to me finally accepting that the watch would be sent to me with the condition that the chronograph would be unserviceable.

It eventually arrived, and fully scathed in all the wrong places.

PT II. “Enjoying” the Watch

Upon receiving the watch, I noticed that the brass pump pushers were aftermarket or at the very least not original to reference, all three sub-dial hands were not original (note how they stretch out to the edge of the sub-dial), the dial was not flush with the rotatable tachymeter insert, and of course the chronograph didn’t work. For a watch that was nearly 3 decades old, I was happy about how it had aged. It had a story that was slowly being dissected and told for better or for worse.

I came to terms with owning the watch understanding the condition would have to do at least in the short term, as I decided it was going to be an under the cuff timepiece for me anyways.

It also takes a special type of person to wear a sunburst gold dialed Breitling and sport it confidently. It’s the kind of confidence where one has to go through losing half the left pinkie during Yakuza initiation then give up the life of crime, only to pick it back up again and decide to wear drug money bling kind of confidence. I felt that I was only a quarter of the way there.

It was only a week. Then the watch completely broke. No timekeeping. Nothing.

Finding a Watchmaker

I felt like I was back to square one with an expensive paperweight like the community likes to call it.

For those of you who live in Vancouver, you’ll understand that Norbert from “The German Watchmaker,” is probably the only viable option to professionally service a watch in the area if you want to keep both your kidneys.

The first weekend I had off from work I excitedly drove to his shop, and met with a familiar reality check.

“With old watches, they go through a lot. This watch has had a very hard life; a lot of hands have touched it. The movement is all scratched up. The watchmaker who serviced this watch was a complete amateur, no proper watchmaker would have left this amount of scratches on the movement. I won’t be able to find parts for it as well. I can’t touch it. My advice is that you return the watch and get your money back for it.” -Norbert, German Watchmaker

In other words I was out of luck. I honestly didn’t know where to go. I must have slouched quite low because as I was about to depart he said he knew only one person that might be able to “save the watch.”

A Veiled Man Living In Wine Country

Norbert wouldn’t have recommended anyone one he didn’t trust. The watchmaker went by the name Tom, and he lived in the Okanagan Valley, in a city called Kelowna. The watch had to be yet again shipped away in order for him to take a look at it.

I underwent extensive research on the individual, and by extensive, I mean I googled his name + watch repair. Tom didn’t have any presence online, there was only a single whisper that existed by a member of the watch community in a decade old thread from a watch forum about this man. He didn’t have a store front, nor did any marketing. As it turned out, he was quite an elusive watchmaker. He primarily worked behind the scenes servicing movements for a lot of the big name boutiques in multiple cities.

At first I was reluctant to ship it to someone I didn’t know, but I had little choice. After emailing back and forth, I was confident it wasn’t a Nigerian prince. Tom agreed to open up the watch and evaluate it for free if I paid for the shipping, and so I did.

Two weeks goes by and he finally asks me to give him a call.

“Unfortunately I won’t be able to work on the watch, the chronograph module has been opened up and irreparable at this point, I can service the time-only ETA movement, but I still would not be able to bring it up to the standard where I could attach my name to it. Your best course of action now would just get it done by Breitling. They’ll have the tools and parts to get the work done properly.” -Tom

After an hour long conversation about why the Dubois-Dépraz chronograph module is so troublesome, an amazing watch story where he was once asked to service a Rolex that had survived a plane crash in World War II, we ended the phone call.

It’s always respectable to hear a solid “no” from a professional with integrity rather than an individual just looking to make fast money, but it was still soul crushing to get rejected again.

Hobson’s Choice

I avoided getting Breitling to service the watch from the beginning for two main reasons. The first being that I was not confident that the fragility of the vintage charm could be preserved, and the other being how extremely expensive the service would be.

It had to be evaluated by Breitling Canada’s service facility located in Toronto, so once again I had it shipped out.

Upon completion of the inspection it was determined that the movement had to be completely overhauled. The sub-dial hands were unoriginal to the specific reference which was known. The hour hand, minute hand and chronograph-seconds hands all needed replacing due to the corrosion that had formed. It was confirmed that both pump pushers installed were also illegitimate to the reference and needed replacements. Optional work that was offered was to replace the sapphire crystal which had completely worn out in terms of the anti-reflective coating, and the tachymeter insert which had been scratched up.

To experienced collector of vintage pieces, it’s commonly understood that you shouldn’t touch case, the dial, or the hands. It’s relatively upsetting to see lume of the modern era on a vintage dial bearing patina.

I was at a loss of words or direction when I was met with this dilemma. Breitling noted that they would outright refuse to service the watch unless the items aforementioned were all addressed.

Meeting the Maker

I had to make a decision of whether I wanted to preserve the state of the watch or concede to Breitling. I started out on the journey to make sure a piece of history would be preserved whether it actually stays with me or not. It was an overall passion project that I had decided to take part of, or rather be a part of. However, as a sole individual with limited funds, I was not a Breitling museum, nor would my values allow me to accept a beautiful timepiece to sit idly in a closet to collect dust. A timepiece that doesn’t tell time is a paradox I simply won’t allow in my reality. After watching Netflix’s Dark, I have had my fill of mindfuck paradoxes to last me a lifetime.

In the end, I had to accept that in order to breathe life into this particular Navitimer 92 I would just have to accept that having new hands installed and losing the patina of the original hands was just part of its journey. All other trustworthy options to get this watch working had been exhausted until this point. I have the firm opinion that a watch that had seen sun, humidity, and hardship all its life deserves to continue seeing the same conditions that allowed it to evolve into something so uniquely differentiated.