Audemars Piguet

Since 1735, Blancpain, a brand of vintage watches have preserved their philosophy of traditional watch-making. throughout these 274 years, Blancpain has stuck to an eternal belief: they will never manufacture quartz watches but only round watches. There is no large-scale production line in the Blancpain factory but only watch-makers’ work tables. The assembly of each Blancpain watch is individually completed by a specific watch-maker. This tradition has not changed for three centuries.

The farm of the Blancpains was situated in a village of Villeret in Jura Mountain, Switzerland. This was also the place the great master Jehan-Jacques Blancpain started making watches. When King Louis IX of France decreed to abolish Édit de Nantes and announced Protestantism to be illegal, many Protestants fled to Switzerland. These Protestants included many genius watch-makers. They found out that they could manufacture higher quality of watches when they worked with metal workers from Geneva. However, Geneva was a small place for too many people that some of them moved to the highland valley of north Jura Mountain and J.JBlancpain arrived in Villeret.

The methods adopted to make watches in the village were not recorded in words. Instead, such skills and methods were passed to the following generation verbally. If Villeret was said to be the birthplace of Blancpain, then Le Brassus was where Blancpain was made famous. Le Brassus was located in the centre of Jura Mountain and the Watch Farm was also established there. Many fine and complex masterpieces were created there.         

Blancpain has insisted on a small-scale farm style for hand-making watches with outstanding workmanship. This brought Blancpain distinctive human spirit which was different from other large-scale factories producing quartz watches. With the passage of time, Jehan-Jacques Blancpain became worried about the development of his watch-making business. This was because his son, Issac, wanted a job in education instead of taking over his father’s business. Fortunately, the Blancpain business was taken over by Issac’s son, David-Louis, in late 19^th century. David-Louis even promoted this watch brand to neighboring countries and the business was expanded to France and Germany.

The special features of Blancpain watches are subtle and implicit. No matter it is a gold watch or a steel watch, all the indicators, calibrations, automatic winding pendulums are all made of expensive metals such as gold or platinum. Seventy percent of the Blancpain watches have the power storage which lasts 100 hours. But the watches rarely have an indicator of power storage on the dial. Remaining low-profile has been the principal subject of Blancpain watches. With the limitations of being hand-made for production, no more than 10,000 watches are produced annually. Many of the limited edition watches are produced for several tens to several thousands only.

Fifty Fathoms

In 1953, French Admiral Mr. Robert Bob Maloubier authorized Blancpain to manufacture Fifty Fathoms, a watch that allowed naval force to fight at the bottom of the sea. (“Fifty Fathoms” was named due to its high resistance to water for up to fifty fathoms, i.e. 91.45m, deep under the sea). “Fifty Foams” had contributed greatly to the safety of marine work and explorations. It was also the world’s first professional watch for scuba-diving. The watch case of Fifty Foams was very sturdy and anti-magnetic. It had a black dial, extra large fluorescent numbers and time scale and broad fluorescent hands. There were marks on the watch ring to indicate the time limit for scuba-diving and it was rotatory. Such an invention was a revolutionary breakthrough at that time and this watch had become the pioneer of diving timepieces. Fifty Fathoms have been chosen as the military equipment of special forces in countries such as France, Germany, America, Italy and Israel because it is highly professional, stable and sturdy. This watch has also been used by the professionals of ocean exploration teams.

**no guarantee about story is completely accurate and existed difference**