BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
Back in 2023, Breguet introduced the new Type XX and Type 20 watches which built on the brand’s rich history of making watches for aviation, stemming back to the 1950s. From the 1990s until around 2021, Breguet made the Type XX, which was a long-lived workhorse and a modern-day classic. But, it was old and needed replacing which is where 2023’s watches came in. Now, to mark 250 years of Breguet’s history in 2025, two new versions of the venerable Breguet pilot’s watch step forth.
2075BH/99/398 – black & 2075BH/G9/398 – silver
Both watches are made of ‘Breguet Gold’, which is the new proprietary alloy developed by Breguet and revealed earlier this year, and they both measure precisely 38.3mm which is based on the historical reference 1780 which is now owned by the Breguet Museum. Two versions are on offer, the ‘mainstream’ version has a black aluminium dial, while the 250-piece limited edition features a brushed solid silver dial with a tachymeter scale around the dial edge.
The eagle-eyed among you will also have noticed that the black-dial version features a 15-minute counter (although without numerals), while the silver-dial limited edition boasts a 30-minute counter. To make this work, Breguet has developed two different movements which feature the calibre 728 (introduced in 2023) as a base. The watch with the black dial has the calibre 7279 inside it, meanwhile, the silver dial version has the 7278 calibre within.
Both are otherwise identical, apart from that minute counter, and they feature manual winding, a column wheel chronograph with a vertical clutch, a flyback mechanism, a zero-reset mechanism to reset the hands when the crown is pulled, and a 5Hz beat rate. The power reserve is around 60 hours. The movements feature a gold plate with a hand-engraved depiction of the Breguet No. 19 aircraft (from the same family, but a different company), which completed the first Paris-to-New York City flight in 1930, flown by Dieudonné Costes and Maurice Bellonte. Breguet has such a rich history that it’s a shame not to make the most of it where possible, and depicting a historic flight over the Atlantic on the caseback of its watches is pure class.
The black dial version of Breguet’s Type XX Chronograph has a price of $43,500; meanwhile, the silver dial limited edition version retails for $45,200.
