Breguet released reference 2075BH/G9/398 in June 2025, the year the Maison turned 250 and marked it with a run of anniversary releases across its collections. The watch is a 38.3 mm hand-wound flyback chronograph in 18K Breguet gold, limited to 250 pieces, and the only one in the current Type XX line with a dial made of solid silver.
A second anniversary sits behind it. 2025 also marked seventy years since the first Type XX in gold, recorded in Breguet’s archives as No. 1780. That watch left the workshop in 1955 with a satin-finished silver dial and received a black one later in its life. Both modern 2075 references draw from it, and this one returns to the way it was originally finished.
To understand why this matters, we need to go back further than 1955.
How Breguet Arrived at 1955
By 1955, the Breguet name had been running along two separate lines for eighty years. The founder’s descendants had left watchmaking for electricity, scientific instruments and eventually aircraft, while the watch company carried on under different owners and had been building counters for aircraft since 1926. When the French military went looking for a pilot’s chronograph in the early 1950s, both strands were already in place.
Abraham-Louis Breguet opened his workshop on the Quai de l’Horloge in Paris in 1775. The tourbillon patent followed in 1801, and by his death in 1823 the Maison had supplied the French court and the French Royal Navy. In 1870 the third generation sold the watchmaking branch to workshop manager Edward Brown.
Two military versions appeared in 1952, the Type 20 for the Air Force and the Type XX for Naval Aviation, with civilian Type XX variants alongside. Mass production began in 1954, and 1,100 Type 20 watches reached the Air Force between 1955 and 1959.
No. 1780 sits in the middle of that period: a gold-cased civilian Type XX with a satin-finished silver dial, gold hands and a tachymeter. Gold was rare in the collection.
Breguet CEO Gregory Kissling has described what the archives turned up, and it goes further than the dial. No. 1780 was built with a 30-minute register and a turning bezel that worked as a second time zone. When the silver dial was replaced with black, the register changed to a 15-minute big-eye layout for easier reading, and the hands were swapped with it.
That is what separates the two modern references: they reproduce two configurations of one watch, before and after it was altered.
The latest generation arrived in 2023 with calibre 728, and the 2075 pair followed in 2025. Breguet calls the 1955 model the inspiration and the case faithful to its proportions, though the mechanics are new. Our history of the Breguet Type XX follows the collection in full.
What Makes This a Civilian Type XX
In today’s collection Breguet splits the two heritages by name. On its Type XX collection page, the name Type 20 in Arabic numerals marks the military-inspired version built to Air Force specifications: a 30-minute counter, fifth-of-a-second graduations, a bezel with no scale on it and a pear-shaped crown.
Against those criteria, 2075BH/G9/398 sits on the civilian side. Its bezel is graduated to 12 hours, carrying the second time zone the original was built with, and a tachymeter circles the dial. That scale reads average speed over a known distance. At the same time, its 30-minute counter is the one Breguet associates with the military specification, while the black 2075 runs to 15.
The Silver Dial and the Breguet Gold Case
The dial is solid 925 sterling silver, carrying an Ag925 mark between seven and eight o’clock that Breguet counts among its secret signatures. Vertical satin brushing catches light in one direction, so the dial shifts as the wrist moves without a flat glare, and fine concentric rings distinguish the counters without a border or a contrasting color.
Breguet gold is used for the applied signature, numerals and markers, and for the hour and minute hands, which Breguet calls glaive or sword shaped. The central chronograph hand is the only one in blued steel, and the words retour en vol sit beneath the center of the dial.
A slim bi-directional bezel surrounds the dial, its 12-hour scale picked out in blue here and black on the other reference, under a box-shaped sapphire crystal.
The 38.3 mm case is 13.2 mm thick, with 19 mm between the lugs. Breguet gold is an 18K alloy, so 75 percent gold, with silver, copper and palladium making up the remainder. Copper gives it a faint rose cast and palladium keeps it from discoloring, leaving a tone warmer than yellow gold without reading as rose. The watch is rated to 5 bar, or about 50 meters, with a non-screwed crown.
The Power of Calibre 7278
Calibre 7278 is hand-wound, made of 257 components, running at 5 Hz, or 36,000 vibrations per hour, with a single barrel providing 60 hours. That frequency lets the chronograph resolve a tenth of a second.
It is one of the first hand-wound versions of calibre 728, introduced in 2023, and keeps that architecture: a column wheel in black DLC and a vertical clutch, which lets the chronograph hand start cleanly without the small jump a lateral coupling can produce. Breguet notes the flyback was designed into the 728 from the outset, where most flyback chronographs began as standard movements and had it added later.
‘Retour en vol’ is French for flyback, the function named on the dial and worked by the pusher at 4 o’clock. One press returns the running hand to zero and starts it again, where a standard chronograph needs three actions: stop, reset and start. For a pilot timing one leg of a route after another, that mattered.
According to Kissling, two bridges were combined into one and the date-wheel milling removed, opening enough uninterrupted surface for the engraving. It is fully visible through the caseback, and Breguet cuts it by hand before assembly.
The black reference runs a near-identical movement, calibre 7279, which drives a 15-minute counter and carries one more component at 258.
What Flight Is Engraved on the Caseback?
The engraving shows a Breguet 19 flying above its 1930 route from Paris to New York, with an arrow marking the direction of travel. Europe and North America are frosted, while the Atlantic remains smooth.
The aircraft was a Super Bidon known as the Point d’Interrogation, after the question mark painted on its fuselage. Dieudonné Costes and Maurice Bellonte flew it across on September 1 and 2, 1930, in just over 37 hours. Breguet presents the 2075 as a tribute to both men and to two Breguets: the watchmaker and the great-great-grandson who built aircraft.
This was not the first crossing of the Atlantic. It was the first nonstop journey from Paris to New York, flown into the prevailing wind, the harder direction and the reason the arrow is there. No Type XX was aboard either, since the collection was still twenty years away.
The crystal bears the words Breguet and 250 Years, and the caseband is engraved BREGUET · TYPE XX, with REF.2075 and SWISS MADE underneath.
Where It Sits in the Type XX Collection
Breguet lists seven references across three models and keeps the military Type 20 within the Type XX collection. The 2067 and 2057 both measure 42 mm, with the 2067 offered in steel or rose gold.
The black 2075 differs in dial material as well as movement. Kissling has explained the choice: aluminum was a first for Breguet on a Type XX dial, chosen to reference the metal used for the fuselage and wings of the Breguet 19, and anodized to absorb 96 percent of the light hitting it.
Full specifications on breguet.com: 2075BH/G9/398, 2075BH/99/398, 2067ST/92/3WU, 2067ST/92/SW0, 2067RK/Y9/9WU, 2057ST/92/SW0 and 2057ST/92/3WU.
Breguet’s military specification calls for a 30-minute register, and in the current lineup that counter sits on the Type 20 2057 and the silver 2075, while the 15-minute version goes to the civilian 2067 and the black 2075. It does not make the silver watch a military piece, but it shows how little the usual categories have to do with what Breguet built. The two 2075s are also the only hand-wound references here, and the only ones without a date.
Available at Jewels by Love
Breguet has not recreated 1955, it has given the original civilian Type XX a contemporary movement with the aviation history on the back.
We are an authorized Breguet retailer, and our boutique in Philipsburg carries the Type XX collection, so we can confirm current availability and show the silver 2075 alongside the black reference and the automatic 2067.
Check out the Breguet Type XX Chronographe 2075BH/G9/398 at Jewels by love, and if you have any queries regarding any of the Breguet XX references or others, feel free to get in touch with our team.
