Perfect Luxury Breitling – The Watch That Can Never Be Replaced

It wasn’t until I started living and working in New York City as an adult that I realised the real impact my uncle’s Breitling had on people, especially on me. My friends knew the story behind the watch I wore every day, but it wasn’t something that came up in conversation every year. After I started working in the watch industry in New York, things started to change. These questions started coming up more frequently.” What’s the story behind that replica Breitling?”
In today’s clone watch world, the Breitlings of the ’90s are a bit of a niche. They’re all around, but it’s not something you see every day, so it does attract some attention. Sometimes I don’t want to say anything, and I’ll think of it as a “family heirloom.” Other times, if I feel more comfortable with the audience, I’ll tell them the story of my uncle and how it’s on my wrist. You’ve likely heard about it if we’ve been working together for a while.
In the late 1990s, my father and my uncle started working together at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center. This was a big break for both of them, and my uncle wanted to celebrate. He ended up going out and buying this Breitling Blackbird timepiece to recognise his accomplishment without consulting or discussing it with my dad.
But before he had a chance to tuck the watch into his shirt cuff, my dad knew something was wrong. Today, as my father tells the story of when my uncle let him know what he’d bought, his eyebrows rose, and he smiled so happily and contentedly that I felt like I was there with them in the World Trade Center office 25 years ago.
It was a big deal for my uncle, but from the stories people have told me over the years, seeing his brother’s success in the form of a imitation watch was no less a source of pride and accomplishment for my father than my uncle experienced with his new Breitling watch.
I know the watch’s adventures over the next five years in a more general way, but I can say that it has seen incredible trips, concerts, parties, and countless memories with the rest of my family. This Breitling accompanied my uncle from the beach to the boardroom, New York Rangers games to Chelsea Football Club matches, and everything in between. It was on his wrist every time he shook hands with someone; I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these greats read this story.
Even after a few years in the replica watch world, I wear my uncle’s Breitling daily. I don’t have the urge to buy something for myself, and I know I want to keep it forever. But the temptation is still there. Looking back, I think the first sign of my desire to buy something for myself was when I started to run out of OEM straps. I had become a regular at the copy Rolex boutique in New York and had amassed quite a collection of rubber and leather straps in my drawer, although I still preferred five-link straps to anything else.