The Blancpain Air Command was originally produced by Blancpain in the 1950s, and was supposedly intended for use by the US Air Force, the US Navy having already adopted the 50 Fathoms diver’s watch. The Air Command was a flyback chronograph, constructed somewhat along the lines of the Type 20 spec, and supposedly 12 watches […]
Category: Blancpain Watches
Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 70th Anniversary Act 3
The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms needs no introduction to anyone who has ever dipped at least a toe in the history of dive watches as it is widely regarded as the “first true diver’s watch.” 2023 is all about the Fifty Fathoms celebrations for Blancpain, and today marks the debut of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 70th Anniversary […]
Blancpain Ladybird Colors
While fans eagerly await the next Act of Blancpain’s year-long celebration of Fifty Fathoms’ 70th anniversary to drop, the brand deems it an opportune time instead to shine a spotlight on another well-loved model from its repertoire that couldn’t be more different from the iconic modern divers’ watch. Besides being a delightful palate cleanser with […]
Blancpain Ladybird Colors Phase de Lune
Blancpain’s ultra-feminine Ladybird watch spreads its wings with a new, larger 34.9mm case size in red or white gold with diamonds and seven colourful strap combinations. A signature model in Blancpain’s history of women’s timepieces since 1956, the diminutive Ladybird is now joined by a larger three-hand model fitted with the brand’s powerful ultra-thin calibre […]
Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa
Many watches can feel like a solution in search of a problem, but for decades Blancpain has been a leader in building tools to solve challenges faced by divers who push human ability to the extreme. Today, Blancpain is announcing the first Fifty Fathoms “Tech” watch – part of a new line dedicated to technical […]
Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 70th Anniversary Act 1
Blancpain will be releasing a three-part series of special-edition timepieces in celebration of the Fifty Fathoms dive watch’s 70th anniversary. Kicking off with the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 70th Anniversary Act 1, the watch carries most of the 1953 model’s quintessential characteristics — notably the extra large numeral, black dial design, iconic 4 to 5 o’clock […]
Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Valentine’s Day
Although Blancpain has been celebrating Valentine’s Day for more than two decades, the Manufacture had never yet honoured it with a Fifty Fathoms model. It is now doing exactly that with the 2023 release of a limited-edition Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe emblazoned with the emblems of love: the colour red and the heart symbol – Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Valentine’s Day 2023.Love and Fifty Fathoms go hand in hand at Blancpain. This collection of diver’s watches was born of the Brand’s passion for the underwater world, which it has cherished since the early 1950s. It therefore makes total sense to dedicate a Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe model to Valentine’s Day. The timepiece that the Manufacture is unveiling today to celebrate 14 February is for all lovers who, like Blancpain’s executives when diving, lose track of time when they are enthralled.With its satin-brushed steel case measuring 38 mm in diameter and water-resistant to 30 bar (approximately 300 m), the Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe “Valentine’s Day 2023” is made to brave waves of strong feelings. Its unidirectional rotating bezel with ceramic inlay and Liquidmetal hour-markers is an indispensable asset for immersing oneself in the depths of love. The luminous, immaculate white bezel matches the dial graced with 3, 6, 9 and 12 numerals and a minutes track in soft pink. This delicate colour also rims the luminescent heart positioned like a signature at the tip of the seconds hand. The universal symbol of love also sets the finishing-touch to in-house Calibre 1150, which is nestled behind a sapphire crystal case back revealing its robust architecture and refined decoration. Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Valentine’s Day “Valentine’s Day 2023” is thus characterised by a blend of impetuosity and gentleness. These apparent opposites expressed on both the front and back of the 99 timepieces composing the limited series represent the very essence of love.Blancpain is proud of its history dating back to 1735, making it the world’s oldest watch brand. Over the centuries since its foundation, the Maison has maintained its commitment to innovate and has constantly pushed the limits of watchmaking. At Blancpain, the expression “Innovation is our tradition” is a fundamental guiding principle.The attachment to innovation is reflected each year in the development of new timepieces with innovative calibres, often a world’s first. Most recently, in a little more than 10 years, the quest for innovation resulted in the creation of 43 new, in-house, exclusive and varied calibres or movements, which includes: the Calendrier Chinois Traditionnel, the Tourbillon Carrousel, the Carrousel Répétition Minutes and the Tourbillon Volant Heure Sautante Minute Rétrograde. Thanks to constant innovation and complete control over the manufacturing process, Blancpain has absolute freedom of creation. In-house design and manufacturing of a significant part of the components and tools; manual assembly of each movement by a single watchmaker; fully handcrafted refined finishes, even down to the last detail: the strength of the Manufacture lies in our capacity to create timepieces that are at once innovative and respectful of the Swiss watchmaking tradition. This philosophy is reflected in eac Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Valentine’s Day the models and all of our collections, like the classic Villeret pieces, the emblematic Fifty Fathoms diving watches, the elegant Women models or the exceptional Métiers d’Art watches.
Replica Blancpain Air Command
The Blancpain Air Command was originally produced by Blancpain in the 1950s, and was supposedly intended for use by the US Air Force, the US Navy having already adopted the 50 Fathoms diver’s watch. The Air Command was a flyback chronograph, constructed somewhat along the lines of the Type 20 spec, and supposedly 12 watches were made and offered to USAF pilots through Blancpain’s US distributor, Allen Tornek. It’s now an extremely rare grail watch for vintage Blancpain Air Command collectors – they’ve appeared at auction very rarely. One is coming up at Phillips Hong Kong later this month, with an estimate of $50-100,000; and prior to that, another one (not the same watch) hammered in 2016, also at Phillips (in the 88 Epic Stainless Steel Chronograph auction) for CHF 100,000. The lot notes for both watches are pretty much the same in the essentials. The catalogue essay for the 2016 auction reads, ” … scholars have asserted that it was never serially manufactured or commercialized,” and then continues, “Like many other Swiss manufacturers, Blancpain was hit by the quartz crisis and … had to sell many of its assets, including some unfinished watches. With only a handful of specimens of this mythical model known to have survived, it is hard to determine what the exact specifications of the Air Command are.”It then goes on to say, “However, as some of the Air commands have Blancpain-signed movements, it is possible that examples like the one presented here have only been assembled and fitted with a Valjoux 222 after the sell-off of the cases, dials, bezels and pushers and hands.” While the origins of the original Air Command seem to be destined to remain a mystery (albeit if we had records from the era, many passionate collectors would doubtless be deprived of the pleasure of arguing with each other) it was a handsome flyback chronograph, with classic mid-century instrument-timepiece good looks, and Blancpain has in terms of cosmetics, stayed very close to the original. Indeed, from the dial side, at first glance it would be difficult to distinguish one from the other. The new-for-2019 model is very slightly larger than the original (42mm, vs. 42.50 for the new model). The Arabics are larger in the new model (as is the crown), the word “Flyback” is present in a very subdued fashion on the new guy, and of course, the difference in chronograph pusher positioning gives away the newer movement. The new model has no running seconds, with a 12 hour counter where there was a running seconds on the original; but taken as a whole, it’s a pretty faithful reproduction, right down to the elongated 3-minute markers in the 30 minute register. The new watch, however, has a very different movement from the flyback Valjoux caliber 222 in the vintage model. It uses the Blancpain caliber F388B – this is a column-wheel controlled, flyback automatic chronograph with vertical clutch, and which runs at 5 hertz, or 36,000 vph, giving the chronograph a 1/10 of a second resolution. If you’re going to do an homage to a vintage model this is a great way to do it. What a lot of us love about vintage watches is, yes, the nostalgia they can evoke, but of course functionally vintage watches are generally inferior to their modern counterparts, especially with the advances in materials technology, lubricants, gaskets and seals, and movement design which the last ten or fifteen years have brought us. The overwhelming tendency from a design standpoint, from modern brands, seems to be to use ecru Super-LumiNova (somewhat ironically, it turns out that “ecru” actually means “raw” or “unbleached”) in an effort to reproduce the look of yellowed radium or tritium paint, but as Jason Heaton mentioned in one of his stories for us, you don’t necessarily have to see this as an attempt to drape oneself in borrowed glory – at this point, and despite the fact that “fauxtina” is a term that seems to be here to stay, you can as easily look at it as just another color choice if you want. While the new Blancpain Air Command really succeeds in general of capturing the charm of the original vintage model, the one other niggle I can see folks having with it is the propeller-shaped rotor. This is the sort of thing that tends to come across as either an annoying bit of kitsch, or a harmless bit of fun, depending on who you are (and maybe on which side of the bed you got out of this morning). Propeller-shaped winding rotors on aviation-themed watches are, like ecru lume, present in large enough numbers that I personally don’t object to them as much as I did even a few years ago (perhaps this is just a sign of age-related resignation, but I can’t manage to rouse much outrage about it). The rotor in the Air Command is reasonably well done, anyhow, and the rather sober brushed finish the red gold has been given, is pleasantly harmonious with the style in which the rest of the movement has been finished. A propeller on a watch whose design originated in the 1950s is a bit of an anachronism, as by the early 1950s most air forces were falling over themselves trying to switch as fast as possible to jet aircraft, but it’s still a handsome looking rotor. All praise, incidentally, to Blancpain Air Command for omitting a date window – normally I don’t mind them but a date guichet would have been jarringly out of place on this watch (ditto for sticking to a two-register design). Overall, this is a very respectful as well as faithful homage to one of the most interesting, to say nothing of mysterious, vintage Blancpain watches, and the use of modern materials and a modern movement adds significantly to the appeal. These will be produced in slightly larger numbers than the very few surviving vintage Blancpain Air Command watches – Blancpain is offering this watch as a 500 piece limited edition.
Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Quantième Complet Phases de Lune
Expanding on a dive watch collection — especially one with such a rich history as the Replica Blancpain Fifty Fathoms — is a challenge at the best of times. Do you stick to classic tool watch roots? Do you step outside the box with a complication or design with more commercial appeal? Do you start […]
Blancpain Air Command
The Blancpain Air Command was originally produced by Blancpain in the 1950s, and was supposedly intended for use by the US Air Force, the US Navy having already adopted the 50 Fathoms diver’s watch. The Air Command was a flyback chronograph, constructed somewhat along the lines of the Type 20 spec, and supposedly 12 watches […]