I noticed Bruce Springsteen play “Freeway 61 Revisited” with Bob Dylan at Shea Stadium in 2003 after which the whole lot of The Wild, the Harmless, and the E Road Shuffle at Madison Sq. Backyard with a full horn part in 2009. I caught The Boss once more on Broadway in 2017 when he rocked out on nothing however an acoustic guitar and shushed the viewers once they tried to sing alongside. I’ve seen Springsteen loads, however I’d by no means seen this dude put on a watch. Nevertheless, plainly sooner or later over the previous few years the Boss turned a particularly discerning watch collector.
Our newest proof of his watch glow-up comes courtesy of a Rolling Stone interview wherein Springsteen wore a killer timepiece. I don’t know exactly when The Boss got here round to the charms of Swiss horology, however I don’t assume the classic Breitling 765 Co-Pilot on his wrist was merely pulled from the depths of a sock drawer. Nicknamed after famed skier Jean-Claude Killy after he wore one on the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, the ref. 765 Co-Pilot is way from first-vintage-watch territory. The 765 is well-known to devoted chronograph collectors and is the kind of piece one has to hunt out. The watch’s rarity is what makes discovering it on Springsteen’s wrist so attention-grabbing. (Hat tip to observe journalist Nick Gould for this masterful spot.)
The 765 is barely the most recent classic stunner Springsteen’s rocked. In 2020, Bruuuuuce was noticed with a classic Heuer Autavia ref. 1163 “Orange Boy.” The Boss could not have a large assortment, however the items he does have are deep cuts, indicating somebody passionate, and selective, about horology. Just like the Orange Boy, the 765 is a sleeper hit.
Giant for the period when it was produced, the 765 is a 40-mm stainless-steel chrono with a 12-hour register and a triple-register chronograph format displaying a 15-minute totalizer, a 12-hour totalizer, and a working seconds indicator. Powered by the hand-wound Venus 178 motion, one will run you maybe from $15K to $20K on the classic market at the moment—actually not classic Daytona territory, however not entry-level stuff, both. Because of its diameter, this Breitling is completely sized for at the moment’s tastes—even perhaps outsized, if issues maintain trending the way in which they’re trending—and hasn’t actually seen the wild value fluctuations which have affected many different classic fashions in recent times.
I’m unsure what to assume: In over 20 years of going to Bruce reveals, seeing him carrying a watch now is vaguely jarring. However as somebody who pens a column on celebrities carrying cool watches, I’m additionally fascinated. The place did this all come from? Did a misplaced Uber driver drop Mike Nouveau off in Colts Neck? Is Eric Wind hanging across the Stone Pony, slinging classic device watches? Did James Lamdin flip The Boss onto the thrill of Laphroaig 10?!
