Case #614 — Breitling Superocean II 44 Ref. A17392

# CASE #614 — BREITLING SUPEROCEAN II 44 REF. A17392

**Status:** Active Investigation
**Condition:** Excellent Pre-Owned
**Scope:** Box Only
**Year:** Undetermined — Reference Introduced 2016

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## 🔎 CASE NOTES

Every dive watch claims the ocean. Very few are built as though they expect to be held to it. The Superocean II 44 is Breitling's answer to a question most brands stopped asking sometime around the point at which "dive watch" became a design language rather than a specification: how deep, exactly, and how legible at that depth? The answer stamped into this case is 1,000 metres — a figure that has nothing to do with human physiology and everything to do with institutional stubbornness. It is the same lineage that gave the world the SuperOcean of 1957, a tool watch conceived when Breitling was still fundamentally an instrument company that happened to make wristwatches.

The A17392 arrived in 2016 as the second generation of the modern Superocean, and it corrected the one criticism levelled at its predecessor: it grew up without growing louder. The 44mm steel case is broad but conservatively proportioned, the lugs short and downturned, the profile flat enough that the watch sits rather than perches. The unidirectional bezel carries Breitling's signature four rider tabs at the quarters — a detail lifted directly from the brand's professional catalogue, designed to be gripped by a gloved hand in cold water and utterly unmistakable across a crowded room. The blue insert and matching blue dial are not the ornamental navy of a dress diver; they are saturated, deliberate, and engineered to hold their colour as light disappears.

What earns the reference its following is the dial architecture. Oversized applied indices, a fat handset, and a lume application so generous that Breitling's own marketing photography barely exaggerates it. There is no fussiness here, no attempt at vintage cosplay. The Superocean II 44 is one of the last unapologetically modern dive watches produced under the old Breitling regime — before the 2018 change in ownership and direction reoriented the entire catalogue toward heritage. Collectors are only beginning to register that fact.

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## 🕰️ THE EVIDENCE

**Reference:** A17392
**Model:** Superocean II 44
**Case:** Stainless Steel
**Case Size:** 44 mm
**Bezel:** Unidirectional rotating dive bezel, blue, with four rider tabs
**Crystal:** Sapphire, glare-proofed
**Dial:** Blue with white luminous indices and handset
**Movement:** Automatic, Breitling Caliber 17 — COSC-certified chronometer
**Bracelet:** Rubber Strap
**Year:** Undetermined
**Accessories:** Box

**Condition Notes:** Watch retains many original factory stickers, still intact — truly beautiful shape.

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## 🔬 FORENSIC DETAIL — THE STICKERS

The most telling evidence in this file is also the most easily overlooked. Original factory protective stickers — typically found on the caseback, the bezel, and the clasp hardware — are the closest thing the pre-owned market has to an unbroken seal. They are applied at the factory, they serve no purpose after the point of sale, and they are removed by essentially every owner within the first week. Their survival is not a matter of care. It is a matter of the watch having been worn sparingly, stored properly, and never sent through a polishing wheel — because no service centre or reseller returns a watch with its original stickers in place.

For a 44mm steel dive watch — a category that lives hard by design — this is genuinely uncommon. The stickers do not merely suggest condition. They document it. Any prospective owner should understand that removing them is a one-way transaction, and should decide in advance which watch they want to own: the preserved specimen or the instrument.

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## 🌊 THE DEPTH FILE

One thousand metres. The case is machined from solid steel with a screw-locked crown, and the sapphire crystal is engineered to resist the pressure differential that rating implies — a considerably thicker piece of glass than the number on the dial suggests to the casual eye. The bezel's ratcheting action is firm and deliberate, with the rider tabs providing purchase that no coin-edge grip can match.

The blue luminous treatment across indices and hands is applied in unusual volume, and the reference is well known for a long, even glow rather than the sharp initial burn-and-fade of thinner applications. This is a watch designed on the assumption that it would be read in conditions where reading it mattered.

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## ⚙️ THE MOVEMENT FILE

Breitling Caliber 17 — an automatic base movement regulated and finished to Breitling's specification and, critically, submitted for COSC chronometer certification. Breitling is one of the very few houses to certify its entire mechanical production, a policy maintained without exception for decades. The result is a movement that is not exotic, is not delicate, and is serviceable by virtually any competent watchmaker on any continent. Date display at three o'clock. Approximately 38 hours of running autonomy.

This is a deliberate engineering position rather than a compromise. A watch rated to 1,000 metres is not the place for a fragile calibre.

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## 🌟 COLLECTOR PROVENANCE

The Superocean II 44 occupies a specific and increasingly interesting position: it is a late-era product of the pre-2018 Breitling, produced before the brand's wholesale pivot to heritage-driven design. The modern Superocean line that followed is a different watch with a different philosophy. The A17392 is the last of the maximalist, instrument-first Superoceans — and the market has not yet fully priced that distinction.

This particular example strengthens the case considerably. The blue-on-blue configuration is the most sought-after of the colourways and the hardest to find in genuinely unworn-adjacent condition, as blue dials and bezels are precisely the ones that get worn. Combined with intact factory stickers and the original rubber strap, this is not a well-kept example of a common reference. It is a specimen that has spent its life in storage rather than in service, and there is no shortcut to that condition — it cannot be restored, refinished, or manufactured after the fact.

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## 🧾 FROM THE CASE FILE

Breitling Superocean II 44, reference A17392, stainless steel, 44mm. Blue dial with white luminous indices, matching blue unidirectional dive bezel with rider tabs, glare-proofed sapphire crystal. Breitling Caliber 17 automatic, COSC-certified chronometer, date at three. Rated to 1,000 metres. Fitted on original rubber strap. Presented with original box. Many factory stickers remain intact. Production year undetermined; reference introduced 2016. Condition assessed as excellent.

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## 🗝️ BST VERDICT

A modern professional dive watch with a genuinely serious specification, presented in a state of preservation that rarely survives this category. The intact factory stickers and the absence of wear place this well above the typical secondary-market example, and the blue configuration is the one buyers actually want. For a collector seeking the final expression of Breitling's instrument era — before the heritage turn — this is an unusually clean point of entry.

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**👉 Every case deserves a closer look.**