Vintage Blancpain Watch for lady

They are Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, Jaeger LeCoulte, Ebel, Blancpain, Gruen, Hamilton, Cartier, Rolex, Varcheron Constantin, Piaget, etc...

Their value is being ignored as may be most of the watch connoisseur is men, and of course they will buy watch for themselves...and seldom look for women watch for part of the collections.

So as you can see there is a lot of beautiful watches are still available at very reasonable price..

This is one of the Blancpain watch made in 1920. Is that beautiful!?

HK Snob
HK Watch Fever

It is probably the oldest watch brand in the world.

handwriting on the first day of Chinese new year.

 

 

 

 

At the beginning of the 18th century, Jehan-Jacques Blancpain perceived the potential in a completely new business activity: watchmaking. In 1735, he founded the Blancpain brand, setting up his first workshop on the upper floor of his house at Villeret, in the present-day Bernese Jura.  

By recording his name in the official property register of the municipality of Villeret, this pioneer had created an establishment which is now the world's oldest watchmaking brand.

In the second half of the 19th century, as industrialization took hold, in 1865 Blancpain built a two-storey factory by the River Suze and made use of water power to supply the electricity needed for its production processes.  By modernizing its methods and concentrating on top-of-range products, Blancpain become one of the few watchmaking firms to survive in Villeret.

In 1926, the Manufacture entered into a partnership with John Harwood and started marketing the first automatic wristwatch. Four years later, Blancpain adapted the system to watches of small size, and launched the rectangular "Rolls", by Léon Hatot, which became the world's first ladies' automatic watch.

Among the Manufacture's great successes is the Fifty Fathoms, launched in 1953 and produced at the request of the "Combat Swimmers" of the French navy, who needed a reliable watch for their underwater operations. Captain Robert "Bob" Maloubier and the Lieutenant Claude Riffaud, the co-founders of the unit, submitted the project to Jean-Jacques Fiechter, by then CEO of Blancpain, who accepted the challenge. Worn by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, among others, the Fifty Fathoms became the standard of reference among diving watches. Three years later, Rayville-Blancpain repeated this success with the Ladybird, a model equipped with the smallest round movement of the time.

 

 

The small farm house of Blancpain where watches were made

 

 

Blancpain is still a small manufacture for watch today, they claim that “Blacnpain have never produced any Quartz watch, and never will be…”

Since I purchased the first Blancpain moonphase automatic watch in 1990 with about HKD$22,000, at the small watch shop at Park lane at TST, where this shop is still exist nowadays selling G-Shock, Casio and Swatch… Those with the days!

Blancpain keeps sending you Xmas card signed by the CEO, a heavy beautifully printed Blancpain magazine every year… that is a notion of a small company who does  to please his loyal Customers… Imagine if Rolex does it this way, they might have to ship the magazine in 200 containers on by cutting 1% of the Brazil rainforest ….. 

Different Brand has different marketing strategy, when you receive the book from Blancpain every year, I feel Like I need to buy one watch… from Blancpain…   Likely one of the best dress watch for us.

 

AThis watch, presented in 2014, is at the top end of the size spectrum of dress watches, at 42 mm diameter and 11.25 mm thickness. The star of the show is the grand feu enamel dial, enhanced by the narrow bezel, with enamel-painted numerals, and a secret signature, the JB initials just visible in white-on-white between the IV and V, and between VII and VIII. The JB also appears in the logo above the Blancpain letters, and on the second-hand counterweight. The JB stands for Jehan-Jacques Blancpain who founded the brand in 1735 in Villeret, on the upstairs floor of his house. It is probably the oldest watch brand in the world.

 The Calibre 1335 movement can be seen through the sapphire display caseback, with a honeycomb pattern on the oscillating weight that automatically rewinds the watch. An eight-day power reserve means 192 hours. Reference 6630-3631-558, price approximately €27,000. www.blancpain.com

 
HK Snob

Blancpain's Fantastique

It would be fun for me to have such a watch as its moon face is so ironical and sarcastic.

This is HK Watch Fever's Fantastique.

HK Snob
Watch Fever

Is Tourbillon watch more accurate!?

Tourbillon was patented by watch making Master Abraham Louis Breguet. That patent has long since expired. Tourbillon is French for "whirlwind." This is because the mechanism literally spins on itself. Breguet's ideas was essentially to house a clock within a clock.

If you have a balance wheel that rotates, rotating on itself. If you understand the concept of a balance wheel, you know that it does not just turn endlessly in one direction. Rather, it moves in a back and forth manner, like a revolving pendulum. This is often referred to as balance wheel oscillation. In fact, a balance wheel is a pendulum, and the consistency of its back and forth rotations are the basis for mechanical watch movement accuracy. Of course, if the frequency is higher, likely by right, it would be more accurate. That is why Grand Seiko has a Hi Beat of 36,000 cycles per hour.

No matter what type of tourbillon used, the purpose is the same, to counteract the effects of gravity that may alter the accuracy and reliability of a balance wheel's oscillations.

A tourbillon is a in fact a balance wheel that itself rotates, but the balance wheel rotates in one direction (not oscillation), and it typically make full rotation every 60 seconds, but some design rotates every 30 seconds. For this reason, the tourbillon is often used at the seconds counter when it is used in a watch. A convenient way of putting in a second counter.

The main theory behind how a tourbillon is supposed to work, is that the balance wheel rotates to all positions in purpose of off setting the effect gravity might have on it being stuck in one position consistently. So if the balance wheel is constantly moving, then minor deviations here and there will be canceled out. But that is purely theory, as our hands are moving in all direction, the watch is not placed in juts one position. The cancellation effect is multi-degree-variation-complex. There is no fixed rate of gravity cancellation in each of the gesture position.

Most watch manufacturer actually agree but not to admit that even if the tourbillon is able to perfectly cancelling out rate affecting effects of gravity on a balance wheel, this is not the key to ensuring accuracy.


There are researches that have shown that Breguet's theories on tourbillon’s improvement are neglectible or even not effective at all on accuracy.
This carries a result that all effort in making and implementing a tourbillon movement does almost nothing to increase accuracy. Instead, a well constructed traditional watch that is finely tuned will beat out a tourbillon based watch anytime in terms of accuracy.


Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe and Blancpain, among others headed this movement. The first tourbillon-based watches were interesting, but lacked much of what people needed in a watch. Like the AP introduced in 1985, it is delicate, semi auto-wound of low efficiency, and often not very easy to read.
20 years later, automatic tourbillon movements arrived along with a number of aesthetic and functional variations, but of course the nature of the movement provided that it would always be delicate.

As such tourbillons will always remain a piece of art and miracle for curiosity, rather than watch improving technological innovations.

There are really only two reasons for a tourbillon based watch, and neither of them have anything to do with increased accuracy or reliability. A tourbillon is interesting and excited to look at. It is always in motion and attracts attention and really makes the watch seem more alive beside tick-taks,. This is especially true with the multi-axis tourbillon movements with their constant gyration. The visual splendor is there, but arguably not worth the incredible premium. Moreover it brings us such tourbillon watch is pure showiness and prestige.

Attached is the famous Blancpain Torubillon, It is simple design, it works! Blancpain Tourbillon would give you extra viewing effect beside accurate time keeping, why not?

HK Snob

Blancpain Fifty Fathoms

In 1952, the French "Nageuers de combat" (combat swimmers) was instituted by the French government as an elite team of tactical soldiers - the NAVY Seals of France. Captain Bob Maloubier was at the helm of this group, whose missions included underwater intelligence, sabotaging operations, and clandestine port-attacks. The team was already using tools such as compasses, depth gauges, and yes, watches, but none were specifically designed for the rugged tasks at hand. He was the original Designer for Fifty Fathoms, and he approached LIP and then the very small company of Blancpain to make this diving watch for him, that was 1954. Today there are about 20 variations of Blancpain and I used to have one A "No Radiations" Model From 1966. but I looked at the case carefully, and saw that there are very rough case profile and I suspected that was a fake,, and in fact I had not so much knowledge at that time, so I sold it to some one, Today, I fell regret as that is a rare watch, and that is beautiful. How Can I get this watch again!?
The picture shown here is the new Blancpain Fifty Fathoms limited to 500 pcs Only.
Blancpain had announced that they produce mechanical watch only and never will make any quartz watch! This may be the only one swiss company that can definitely say they produce Mechanical watch only.
HK Snob

Blancpain

Blancpain started the watch manufacturing since 1735. An early small Swiss Watch company that they actually using a farm house as the factory.

I had the very first Blancpain watch in 1990. I had found that the watch was very accurate.
As I always mentioned, the Accuracy of a watch reflects how seriously the watchsmith and Engineer maintin the component precision, asembly process, material studies, material selection and experinece and Skill that they commit to Make that Watch.... I am expecting a Good watch should have at least 30 PPM accuracy per day as an average for time taking in 2 weeks, My Blanpain can make it.. and Surprisingly until today I still had it running as good as perfect as it was purchased 20 years ago....

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