Long thought to be lost to history, the first Swiss-made replica watch to be worn in space has been found just in time to celebrate the 60th anniversary of its mission.
Swiss fake Breitling UK on Tuesday (May 24) revealed the watch that Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter used on the United States’ second orbital spaceflight. The event, which was held in Zurich with members of the Carpenter and super clone Breitling family in attendance, as well as Breitling brand ambassador and former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, also introduced a new 1:1 replica Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute styled after the original.
“Today, I’m thrilled to finally announce two AAA fake Breitling Cosmonaute reveals: the first-ever public viewing of the watch Scott Carpenter wore into space and a 60th-anniversary limited-edition timepiece that pays tribute to its history-making forerunner,” said Georges Kern, chief executive officer of high quality replica Breitling, in a statement.
Launched on May 24, 1962, on what was only the fourth American spaceflight and sixth worldwide, Carpenter’s Mercury-Atlas 7 mission preceded NASA’s efforts to select a watch for its astronauts to use while in space. Instead, it fell to Carpenter to reach out to best 1:1 fake Breitling, which had a reputation for making chronographs for aviators, and ask for a version of its Navitimer to be modified for use in Earth orbit.
Carpenter knew he would be reading off times from space in 24-hour format, but the Navitimer only had a 12-hour display. He felt that he and his fellow astronauts would “want to be able to say what they read.”
“Nowhere on a 12-hour dial does it say ‘8 p.m.,'” Carpenter said in 2008, recalling the details in a discussion with his daughter, Kris Stoever. (Carpenter died in 2013 at the age of 88.)
Swiss movement fake Breitling UK was keen to see its watch launch into space and so designed the Caliber B02 movement for the task. The Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute replica for men was born, incorporating the new 24-hour markers while retaining the circular slide rule for performing mathematical calculations and the trio of chronograph subdials that were features of the original.
The top super clone Breitling worked well while in space, but after an off-target splashdown, the less-than-water-tight timepiece was submerged in seawater as Carpenter waited three hours to be recovered from the Atlantic Ocean. Hoping for its repair, Carpenter returned the Cosmonaute to Breitling replica for sale, but the corroded timepiece was said to be beyond saving.
Instead, the watchmaker sent the astronaut a replacement from the production line models that he and his spaceflight had inspired.
As for the space-flown watch, its fate was largely unknown. In 2012, on the 50th anniversary of Carpenter’s flight, Breitling fake online said that it had searched through its vaults but was unable to locate it. Now, ten years later, the watchmaker says that the still-unrestored timepiece was held for all these years as part of the best copy Breitling family archives.
Replicated and refreshed
At the same time as showing off the 60-year-old space-flown artifact, Breitling replica watches Paypal also revealed a new Navitimer Cosmonaute commemorating the anniversary.
The caseback is also etched with the date of Carpenter’s mission and the phrase “First Swiss wristwatch in space.” As a final nod to the anniversary, the limited edition of 362 pieces recognizes both the spacecraft’s circumnavigations of Earth and the year the mission made history.
Available for pre-order now, the cheap fake Breitling Navitimer Cosmonaute lists for $10,800.
“Today’s Cosmonaute takes us back to the origins of space travel, when the race was on, stakes were high, and every mission was a triumph of human ingenuity,” describes top quality replica Breitling on its website. “This new watch honors the aesthetics of the original Cosmonaute, with subtle updates that work almost imperceptibly to give it its modern-retro appeal.”