Blancpain The Prestigious Watch Company
by Joseph Levy
Thursday, October 02, 2008
The oldest watch company in the world
The Swiss watch manufacturing company Blancpain was founded more than two hundred years ago in 1735. Founded by Jehan-Jaques Blancpain, the company was saved from bankruptcy by Jean-Claude Biver, who was working as an executive at the Omega watch company at the time. In these beginning years, the company’s watches were made by Blancpain in Villeret, Switzerland.
Each of Blancpain’s watches is made by a single watchmaker
One unique aspect of this prestigious watch company is Blancpain has never been inclined to produce quartz watches. They also express the sentiment that they will never desire to produce quartz watches. Blancpain has also advertised that they have never, and will never, produce watches that have digital displays on them. Blancpain offers far fewer watches when compared with rivals. While there are some watch companies that may create thousands of watches every day, Blancpain only creates about ten thousand watches every year. While it is true that Blancpain has far fewer watches produced over time when compared to other companies, their pieces are considered by many to be very exclusive and a sign of privilege.
The additional challenge to the watch company and the watchmaker responsible for creating their pieces is that Blancpain is renowned for creating one of the most complicated watches on the market. This complicated watch is known as the Blancpain 1735. One piece per year is created. The Blancpain is a limited edition watch, with only thirty pieces having been created. Each of Blancpain’s watches is made by a single watchmaker. It can take years for a watchmaker to become a master in their trade. There are 740 components in the Blancpain 1735 watch. Two months need to be dedicated simply to preparing these components to be constructed into the watch. In all, it takes a year to create the Blancpain 1735.
Aside from the Blancpain 1735, there are a number of different watches found within the Blancpain collection. These include Le Brassus, Leman, Villeret, specialty, women and sports lines. Sport watches and Blancpain’s Le Brassus watches are designed for display primarily with men in mind. The other collections have watches available for men and women in mind, when it comes to both purchase and wear.
Today, Nicholas Hayek runs the Blancpain watch company and oversees the business of the company. There are a number of essential, core values that the company adheres to. The values that the company adheres to includes their commitment to their various collector’s watches, their achievement as the oldest watch company in the world, celebration of their rich cultural heritage, the hand-coordinated assembly of watches and their overtly successful compromise that has been created between the past and the future eras of watch making. The Blancpain watch company has enjoyed a number of achievements throughout their long existence. Blancpain is able to offer watches that are ultra-slim, perpetual calendars and minute repeaters. Some other achievements of the Blancpain watch company include their Moon Phase, GMT, Chronograph, Fly-Back and Split-Second Chronograph, Tourbillion and Equation Marchante watches.
