Thanks Jeff,

Well my story started as it would, I'm sure, with any of yours. In the hunt in the late hours of the morning scrolling through the thumbnails to see what's waiting to be discovered. Then suddenly a small little thumbnail caught my eye. I didn't realize what it was at first but something in the miniscule detail caught my attention. This is what it looked like.

I think my heart skipped a beat as a read the description "Breitling GMT"! So without delay I clicked straight into see the pictures. Upon closer look the watch had been through some action in its heyday. The owner had also dropped it years back which disloged the dial along with the subdial hands.

My heart was racing at this stage with too many questions on my mind! How many days to go? How many bids? Can it be restored? What's my budget (eep!)? When's payday?

Having already own a Breitling GMT Chrono-matic version I couldn't pass up on this new offer since it had the GMT manual as well! I haven't seen this listed the past year and I'm guessing another one won't come again soon. These 812s, in my mind, are more sought after than its Chrono-matic brother. Another GMT Chrono-matic was also listed at $4,000! Unrealistic, but hey imagine what this would be worth (if it could be fixed up). So all signs are pointing to go. I was about to be in a fight to the end!

So it was. A fight to the end. I won! But at a painful $2300. It was even more painful when I found out that the seller had set a BIN at $1,800 earlier! But then, no regrets. I've already come to far to backtrack. There lies a bigger battle ahead - whether or not I could get it restored to its original glory. Two weeks I waited and when it turned up in the mailbox I found myself like a little boy on his birthday who couldn't wait to tear up the box to see the goodies inside.

Thankfully the condition wasn't as bad as I had originally thought. The seller's flash photography picked up a lot of dust and scratches on the crystal which I had originally perceived to be on the dial.

But looking at it in my hand the dial was almost pristine.

So without delay I sat down to work on it. Don't worry about dinner! It was a bit of effort trying to unscrew the caseback off. The seller never got it serviced since he bought it in 1972! I had to mount the case on a bench to get the best grip. Anyway, after some fiddling and effort off it came undamaged. It was clear that the crystal had heavy scuffing.

The dial itself had lots of disintegrated lume dust and fluorescent orange paint chips everywhere.

After carefully removing the remaining hands I dusted off the dial to see if the loose parts had done any damage at all. Thankfully it was all cleanable. Well almost. The prolonged UV exposure had left a silhouette of the hands on the subdial. Nothing I can do about it and I guess my only comfort is that when the hands go back in the silhouette won't be visible. The rest of the markings came off quite easily using a fine tipped pencil eraser.

The next step was the crystal. Out came the wet & dry 600 working it down until the scratches faded away. Following again at 1000 then finally with Cape Cod's polish. Lovely stuff! I guess for times like these you have to be gratful that they used a plastic crystal instead of a mineral one!

The extra incentive in buying this watch was that I had a spare NOS set of hands waiting for this moment exactly! These are extremely hard to find and Breitling doesn't sell them outright. Uh uh, no way! I was lucky enough to buy the remaining inventory off a seller a while back so... I guess it pays off to think ahead a little!

I only had the orange hands but not the yellow sweep and black subdial hand. Luckily the original was still in good condition otherwise I'd be in a world of trouble!

So now it was ready to come back together. Voila!

What was first considered to be a job for my watchmaker I am happy that I had carried out the work myself. I had done in 2 hours what would have taken him 2 weeks (due to his workload).

So happysnaps time with the other brother out for a family photo.

I really should get the watch properly serviced soon enough considering that it hasn't been cleaned and oiled in 35 years! But for now I'm happy enough with it in storage, original and in a cosmetically clean condition.

I will post up some pictures of the movement soon! In the meantime I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I have putting it together!

Thanks again to Jeff, for the invitation to join the forum.

Regards,

Martin