So what can I say? I must have been a VERY good boy this year. The chick bought me a Breitling Super Avenger. She gave it to me as a combo present for pretty much every holiday for the rest of the year due to the cost.

I’ve been eyeing the Breitling Super Avenger for about a year now and even tried it on once in the store. The problem is that I don’t have the balls to pay $4,000 for a watch on my own. I just had a lot of trouble justifying it to myself. Now that’s not to say that I’m cheap. I would have no problem at all spending that money on my wife and I actually have been known to buy her pretty expensive things.

That being said, I’m not sure where my interest in Breitling came from, but I definitely started noticing them more and more over the last several years. I considered Rolex, but that has the air of a stuffy old man’s watch (I’m sure I’ll get heat from the Rolex fans for that), I also looked at Omega, but it just didn’t catch my eye.

I was walking past a Tourneau store several months ago. My wife has been advocating me getting a nice watch for a long time, so she suggested we stop and look in the window. My eye was immediately drawn to the Breitling Super Avenger. I’m a very tall and large framed guy, so I have always been interested in larger watches. The problem is that large watches all seem to be either very cheap (and look it) or insanely expensive.

While we were ogling the Super Avenger, a salesman walked out and asked if we’d like to see it. My wife spoke for us and said sure. We went inside and the salesman pulled it out and let me try it on. He pretty much immediately started saying annoying things like “so are you ready to buy it?”. This type of cheap sales tactic pisses me off. I don’t get intimidated by sales people and am likely to walk away from a deal just because someone is less than respectful. In this case, I have a personal rule that I generally follow that says I will not make major purchases without having done a substantial amount of homework and knowing that I’m not about to make a bad deal. Beyond that, when I’m considering a very expensive item like a Breitling or Mercedes, I expect a higher quality sales person with tact and respect. If I want to buy a watch from “my cousin vinny” then I expect to pay a lot less than several grand.

Suffice it to say that I appreciated the opportunity to try on the Super Avenger and check it out up close, but by the time the salesman uttered his 4th or 5th lame high pressure sales pitch to me in the space of five minutes, I had already decided that I would not buy the watch from him. Idiots like that do not get commissions from my purchases.

My wife and I politely said we’d consider it and would return if we decided for it and left. We went home. I did some research on the internet and looked into pricing. I was very suprised to find that Breitling prohibits all sales of it’s watches online. There are NO authorized Breitling distributors that sell them online at all period!

The few stores that I found online that people on forums, etc. said were trustworthy, initially looked like they sold the watches substantially cheaper than the authorized resellers, but then I found that most stores will let you haggle down the price pretty significantly. The bottom line for “Gray Market” stores is that they only save you about $100 to $200 below what you can generally get the watch for at an authorized seller. Why is this a big deal? Because you void your Breitling warranty by purchasing it from anywhere other than an authorized reseller. Beyond that, if you ever decided to sell your watch later, most stores and private parties will want to see not only the watch, but your receipt and the box and everything else that came with the watch to prove that it is real. Apparently there are some very good fakes out there.

At the end of the day, I decided that when it was time to buy a ‘Ling (as the watch fanatics call them) that it would be from an authorized seller with some serious haggling.

Fast forward several months. I had thought of the Breitling from time to time, but as usual, my practical side won out and convinced me that a Breitling was an unneeded luxury that I could live without. I would occasionally be reminded of it and would look online to see if there were any sales or news on them and would start gaining interest in it again, but would once again ignite the fires of reason and force myself to close the web browser.

 My wife came to me one day and asked if I wanted to go to the mall with her and her sister. We went to the mall and I was questioning my judgement as we walked from boring clothing store to boring shoe store. Suddenly her sister says “Hey, let’s stop by the watch store. I want to check something.” I suddenly perked up thinking this would be a good chance to get to caress the Super Avenger again. Sure enough, we get to the watch store and I gravitate over to the Breitling counter. My wife is right next to me and she points to the Super Avenger and says “Ooooh, there it is. Why don’t you try it on again?”. My drool on the glass counter must have been a sign because a nice saleswoman came over and asked if I’d like to see anything in particular. My wife points and says “The big one!”. It came out and I tried it on. My wife asked if it felt nice and if I really liked it. I answered in the affirmative. She suddenly put on a serious poker face and says to the saleswoman “What can you do for me on the price?”. The conversation went as follows:

Saleswoman: “well, it’s $4,600”. 
Wife: “yeah, but I’m not paying that. So how much can you go down?”. 
Saleswoman: “If we get you the price you want, are you prepared to buy it right now?”
Wife: “Sure, if it’s a good price”
Salewoman: “What price are you looking for?”
Wife: “If you can give it to me for $3,500 I’ll buy it right now”
Me: Stunned disbelief
Saleswoman: “I will go ask my manager. Can you give me a credit card to show him as a sign of good faith?”
Wife: “Here you go”

The saleswoman walked away and my wife looks excitedly at me and says, “Are you sure you like it? If she comes back with that price or close to it we’ll take it. That’s a very good price.” I just asked her if she was sure about this and knew what she was doing. She said yes on both counts as long as that’s really the one I like. I again asked if she was sure as that’s a lot of money (especially in light of the fact that my wife is known for saying “it’s not necessary” to many of my frivolous desires). She looked at me the way a mother looks at a silly child and looked back towards the counter where the saleswoman was returning.

Saleswoman: Ok, I spoke to the manager. The best I can do if you buy it today is $3,640.
Wife: If I take it for that will you throw in the two year Tourneau bumper to bumper warranty?
Saleswoman: I can’t throw in anything else as we are limited by Breitling on how much we can discount and anything I throw in is considered part of the discount.
Wife: There has to be something else you can throw in. How about a watch winder?
Saleswoman: Same thing, I can’t give you anything else as part of this transaction.
Me: I don’t know. You won’t come down on the price and you won’t thrown anything else in…
Wife: I have a watch at home that needs a battery replaced and my sister needs to buy a new strap for a watch. What can you do?
Saleswoman: Come back in on a day I’m here and bring me the watch. I will have the battery changed for free and can give you a discount on the new strap, but you have to see me specifically.
Wife: We’ll take it.
Saleswoman: Do you want the extended warranty from Tourneau? It gives you two years bumper to bumper on the watch. If you drop it and break the face, we’ll repair it. You can bring it in to have it polished and remove scratches for you as often as you like. If anything gets broken or damaged externally we’ll fix it. The internals and movement are covered by the Breitling warranty.
Wife: Theres no way you can include that in the price?
Saleswoman: No, as I explained
Wife: We’ll take it, but I want the free battery replacement and the strap discount
Saleswoman: No problem, just come see me as we discussed

And that is pretty much it. We paid and got the watch. When they brought it out, I noticed the outside box was damaged, so I made her give me a new one. As I mentioned earlier, I discovered people that buy used Breitlings are very particular about having all of the packing and items that came with the watch. They will actually pay you less if you don’t have the box or receipt or if the box, etc. are damaged.

One humorous (to me) note: As my wife was signing the credit card receipt, the first salesman we had dealt with that had been rude and less than professional walked in the store. He immediately saw me strapping on the Breitling and looked from me to the saleswoman, then back to me. I smiled politely then looked away chuckling to myself. Vengeance is a dish best served cold.. Mwuahahaha!

I tried to stop in once since then to have the battery on my wife’s watch replaced, but the saleswoman was on vacation for the week. Since she was so specific about saying to come back and see her, I didn’t want to risk getting her in trouble by asking someone else to honor the free battery change.

 I will update this post if I have any troubles getting the watch battery replaced, but I don’t anticipate any problems.

The watch has been great. Beware that it is a VERY large watch and it’s heavy. I have gotten used to it from wearing it regularly, but if the bracelet is not sufficiently tight, it will try to roll over on your wrist. I have gotten a lot of compliments on the watch and pretty much everyone notices it as it is huge and shiny. If you are a smaller or average sized man, you should be aware that it will look massive on you.

Lastly, if you haven’t had an automatic watch before, be aware that you must wear it regularly as the movement of your had actually powers the watch. If you leave it still for more than about two days, the watch will stop and will have to be reset. Not a big deal, but worth knowing.