For Sale Rose Gold Men's Blancpain Replica Watches
As a watch journalist, I have visited a large number of watch manufacturers, from the largest industrial sites to the smallest artisanal workshops, and even if much of the machinery and many of the production processes are similar, there is always something unique about each one. Blancpain Replica Watches is no exception.
There are two sites for Blancpains production, both of which are nestled in the unspoiled landscape of the Valle de Joux. The first site is in Le Sentier, where the company creates the components for its movements, carries out the assembly of its calibers and cases the final watch. The second site is situated in an old flour mill, just down the road in Le Brassus. It is here that we find the brands high complication workshops and its mtiers dart studio.
A Little History Behind aBig Brand But before we step inside, a little history about the Blancpain company that has been operating since 1735, making it the worlds oldest watchmaking brand. Blancpain was started by Jehan-Jacques Blancpain in a small workshop on the upper floor of his house in Villeret. The brands watches enjoyed great success right from those early days, a success that was continued by the founders heirs. By the middle of the 19th century, Blancpain had become one of the most important enterprises in Villeret.
On the death of Frdric-Emile Blancpain in 1932, his only daughter didnt want to take over the business and it was sold to two loyal members of staff Betty Fiechter and Andr Lal. Fiechter was at the head of the company until 1950 when her nephew, Jean-Jacques Fiechter, joined her and later became CEO himself.
During the 1970s, Blancpain became part of the SSIH company, joining brands such as Omega, Tissot and Lemania, but the quartz crisis and the recessionhitBlancpain hard and it was subsequently soldtoJacques Piguet, son of Frdric Piguet, and Jean-Claude Biver, who turned the company around. In 2002 thegroup was renamed the Swatch Group and Marc A.Hayek became chairman andCEO.
Today, Blancpain is probably best known for its sports watches thanks to its links to the worlds of diving and motorsports. Timepieces such as the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Collection and the Villeret Collection have gracedthe pages of Revolution countless times. But there is a very small part of its production dedicated to the mtiers dart that remains largely in the shadows. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, the numbers of these hand-crafted words of art are extremely limited, and secondly, many of them are bespoke orders from the brands clients and are mostly kept secret from the press.
As a special treat, Blancpain let us into its artistic world to discover some of the amazing products that are being brought to life here using a variety of age-old techniques that have been historically connected to watchmaking, such as miniature enamel painting and engraving, but also different ancient crafts, such as Shakud or Binchtan from Japan and Damascening fromChina.
There are different ways to personalize your watch chez Blancpain. You can adapt the gold winding rotor, you can personalize the side of the movement visible through the sapphire crystal caseback, or you can design your very own dial using one of the artistic techniques mastered by Blancpains team of artisans. Lets take a closer look.
Entering Blancpains mtiers dart studio, we meet two engravers busy at work engraving dials with the aid of a state-of-the-art microscope on the one hand, and their own traditional engraving tools called burins, on the other. These types of tools have been in use since Roman times when engravers would carve the portraits of their emperor onto coins. One of the engravers shares with us that her tools first belonged to her grandfather and are almost a century old.
Many parts of the watch can be engraved, including the dials, the movement bridges, the winding rotor, the casebacks and the automata. Each project starts life as a hand-drawn sketch before the engraver starts carving into the metal. The technique is called taille douce which createsamazing textures that bring subjects to life.