Breitling is just about as notorious as Marvel’s Avengers—in the world of watches. With a name associated with high-flying aviation, deep dive quality, and Swiss excellence, they’re a tour-de-force company with iron-clad wings (move over Falcon). With a logo that implies their best qualities, featuring both a pair of wings and a ship’s anchor, Breitling has a history with crafting quality chronometers that goes back 136 years. While we here at Times Ticking could lend 136 years of writing to Breitling’s history and catalog, we’re narrowing our focus down to a more recent addition to their roster. As the title might imply, we’re going to be discussing Breitling’s Avenger series in this posting. More specifically, we’ll be discussing the Avenger and Super Avenger watches in this collection. Each watch is incredibly similar to the other in both watch lines. However, some key differences stand out between both watches that are worth exploring.
Breitling Avenger Traits
Breitling’s Avenger line originally debuted back in 2001. Their recent reboot of the series has been welcomed warmly by the watch industry. While there are a few Avenger variations—designed with either aviation or diving in mind—some general features stay fairly standard between the Avenger and Super Avenger pieces. Both employ Breitling’s signature angular-cut links on a stainless steel band. Each design has an aperture at the 3-o-clock position for displaying the day. The Super Avenger and Avenger both utilize luminescence on their hands, with a sweeping second hand. One of the best ways to describe their commonality, as well, is that they’re both chronograph movement watches. Their subdials are placed at the same location on their respective faces. Breitling’s standard stainless steel makes up the case, which holds a sapphire crystal and houses the same type of movement between both watches. This movement is a Breitling B13 mechanical automatic movement (based off of the ETA Valjoux 7750). Mechanically, the Avenger and Super Avenger are incredibly similar, but there are some differences between them.
As the names might suggest, the Super Avenger is larger than the Avenger. The Super Avenger’s case is 48mm in diameter (vs. 45mm) and 18.6mm in thickness (vs. 17.4mm). This creates an obvious weight difference between the two iterations of Avenger. Beyond the size, the bezels are marked differently between the two. On the Avenger there are Arabic Numerals engraved on the bezel. The Super Avenger sticks solely to tick marks on its bezel. Similarly, the dials on both watches are either marked with Arabic Numerals (Avenger) or Tick Marks (Super Avenger). Another notable characteristic difference has to do with the colors one can choose between the two. The Avenger comes in volcano black, tungsten grey, stratus silver, and Air Force blue. There are two-tone options available regarding the color of the subdials on the Avenger. The Super Avenger primarily offers a black or white dial. There is an exception regarding Air Force blue and volcano black dials, however, which can be paired with white markers on the dial.
We’ll Avenge It
Both the Avenger and Super Avenger watches are designed for performance wear. Each is registered for at least 300meters water resistance. If one is fighting to save the Earth, learning to fly, or looking to dive, they’re both great options. The only major differences between both designs come down to aesthetic and weight preferences from the wearer. So, as long as the specifications fit, it’s easy to align oneself with either the Avenger or Super Avenger. We here at Times Ticking will continue to marvel at Breitling—their history and watch lines always make for a wonderful look into the modern status of Swiss watchmaking.
Times Ticking has been in operation for more than 30 years, since 1982. We have performed watch repair for customers both locally and internationally. If it Ticks! We KNOW it! Our team of watch repair technicians have a combined experience in watchmaking of over 120 years.
