TIME PIECES

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking

Blancpain

1. Blancpain is the oldest watch company still in production

The debate of which watch brand is the oldest is a never-ending one. At the end of the day, it all depends on how you count. Blancpain is the oldest watch company that is still active today, but it has had its ups and downs throughout its history. For some years, Blancpain was not in business and this makes Vacheron Constantin the oldest watch brand with uninterrupted production. But if we look at the oldest watch brand that is in business today, regardless if it has had an uninterrupted production or not, Blancpain is the oldest.

Blancpain was founded in 1735, making it almost 300 years old! It has lived through changing times, market fluctuations, and changes in trends, and faced many challenges (and successes) over the course of its long history. No wonder there’s a lot to say about Blancpain.

2. Blancpain is an innovative brand that has been prized many times

Whilst many Swiss watch brands are perceived as boring, traditional, and non-innovative, that is certainly not the case. Especially not for Blancpain.

Tissot’s motto “Innovators by tradition” is one that can be applied to many Swiss watch brands. They stay true to their heritage and do not compromise on the art of watchmaking. But they continue to innovate, improve, and develop new technologies that propel the watch industry and the manufacturing process forward.

As a matter of fact, Blancpain has received countless and numerous awards throughout the years which praise the company for its great achievements in the watch world. These reflect the fact that Blancpain is an important innovator and invests heavily in research and development.

3. Blancpain has never made a quartz watch

This is an incredible fact that not a lot of Haute Horlogerie watch brands can say. During the quartz crisis in the 1970s, the Swiss watch industry struggled as a result of cheap and affordable quartz watches from Japan. Many companies went bankrupt and others desperately tried to develop new watches to tackle the Japanese quartz watches. For many Swiss watch companies, this meant developing quartz watches. Blancpain is one of just a handful of Swiss luxury watch brands that can say that they have never produced a quartz watch.

As a matter of fact, even brands like Rolex, which doesn’t produce quartz today, started making quartz watches. Blancpain used to highlight this fact in its marketing by saying:

“Since 1735, there has never been a quartz Blancpain Watch. And there never will be”. A bold statement and promise from a watch brand. But one that is probably very comforting for the most devoted watch enthusiasts. Blancpain has stayed true to what it believes in and focuses on which is the art of fine Swiss watchmaking and it has built a name for itself in the industry for creating some of the most extraordinary, fine timepieces.

The above campaign was the idea of Jean-Claude Biver. As he studied the company, he found that they had never created a quartz watch and wanted to proudly highlight this fact to establish the brand as a true Haute Horlogerie manufacturer, exclusively devoted to the art of fine watchmaking.

4. Blancpain stopped its operations in 1980 for three years as a result of the quartz crisis

Blancpain did not believe in quartz and stayed true to its focus on making fine mechanical timepieces. However, the quartz crisis was a heavy blow for all Swiss watchmakers and Blancpain, like so many others, struggled. For three years, Blancpain stopped its operations but after three years, it was resurrected by none other than Jean-Claude Biver, one of the most influential and important individuals in the watch industry.

5. Blancpain resurrected the brand in 1983

Jean-Claude Biver, one of the most influential individuals in Swiss watchmaking saw the potential of Blancpain and purchased the rights for the Blancpain name in 1983. 

6. Blancpain achieved production of more than 100,000 watches per year in 1959

Blancpain hit a total production of 100,000 watches in the year 1959.

To make the continued growth of the company possible, the management understood that they needed more resources and to expand their marketing. How did they solve this?

Well, in 1961, the company merged with the largest watch group at the time, the Société Suisse pour l’Industrie Horlogère (SSIH), including brands like Lemania, Tissot, and Omega.

The merging with the watch group allowed Blancpain to further grow and by 1971, the company reached a total production of more than 220,0000 timepieces, a number that the company has never reached since.

As the quartz crisis came around, the SSIH group decided that its strategy to tackle the threat from cheap Japanese quartz watches was to start producing quartz themselves. As a result of this decision, they decided to sell the company. The buyer was, as discussed above, Jean-Claude Biver (at the time an employee of SSIH), and Jacques Piguet, a movement manufacturer.

7. The founder of Blancpain started his production on the upper floor of his home

Like so many other companies, the founder of Blancpain started his production on a small scale. Jehan-Jacques Blancpain began manufacturing watches in his small workshop which was situated on the upper floor of his home in Villeret, Switzerland.

8. The company was officially registered in 1735

First starting out by manufacturing watches as a hobby, it was eventually time to establish a company in 1735 when he officially registered his business. Jehan-Jacques Blancpain started out making watches some years prior to registering the company so technically, we could even say that the business started a few years prior to the official registration date.

9. The founder was a school teacher

Jehan-Jacques Blancpain was working as a school teacher in the Jura village of Villeret, in Switzerland. The school was situated approximately 50 meters from his house. This makes Blancpain’s story even more interesting as it is a story about how a school teacher turned into a watchmaker.

To make this story even more interesting, the house where the workshop was located was not just any house. It was located on the upper floor of his farmhouse, meaning that on the first floor, he had horses and cattle. The building was first constructed in 1636 and still stands today. Jehan-Jacques Blancpain was born in 1693 to a family of farmers so it doesn’t come as a surprise that he continued the farming tradition, like so many others at the time. But the fact that he converted the upper floor of his farmhouse to make room for his workshop just goes to show his level of devotion and enthusiasm for the watchmaking craft.

He began producing parts for pocket watches, then moved on to create complete ebauche movements, and ultimately started producing complete watches by the second half of the century.

10. Blancpain was owned by the family for almost 200 years

The company was managed by several generations of Blancpain, leading to the company being in the family for almost 200 years. The end of an era for the family-run business was in 1932 when Frédéric-Emile Blancpain died. After his death, two of his best employees Betty Fiechter and André Léal purchased the company. As a result, another important milestone took place, which was that Betty became the first female to become a CEO of a major Swiss watchmaking company.

And as always have a chilled day from the Viking