I'll share again here my commentary I provided in a WhatsApp Group and then again in the comment section for a recent ScrewDownCrown.
In our ecosystem there has been much pearl clutching and mockery of those who lined up for one or more days at Swatch outlets for the Royal Pop. But in these same circles, we praise and hold in high regard the constant drove of men, and yes it's always men, who fly business class from around the world to Geneva, leaving wife and kids behind so that they can bring gifts and genuflect to a trove of various watchmakers with the hopes of getting an allocation sometime in the next few years.
The difference between an insane man and an eccentric connoisseur? Their budget.
I literally had this conversation with someone at lunch, as we laughed about a few of our friends travelling to NY/LA this MDW primarily to...visit the FP Journe boutiques and pay their respects (tbc our friends know we laugh at them). but yes i agree these things are not so different
I guess there’s a negative halo from the current state of the brand, which I would describe as “Fifty Fathoms and other stuff”. It’s not quite as extreme as modern Movado depressing vintage Movado. But you could imagine Biver-era Blancpain being grail-like objects if modern Blancpain was in better shape.
It’s also not that easy to collect. I like neovintage Blancpain a lot, and have a couple references that I’m actively looking for. But I’ve been looking for a while.
Production volumes weren’t high in aggregate, and if you’re looking for a particular reference - good luck. Even if one comes up, it might be priced wrong because there aren’t that many precedent transactions (you’ll often see these sit for 6-12+ months).
Finally, a lot of the watches were 34mm. Which is impressive from an engineering standpoint! But a little small for my tastes, even on my tiny wrists.
agreed on all points, to put just one number to your third point: Estimates put the QP chrono 5395 at ~400 pieces. there are about 4k Patek 3970s! 400 is hardly enough for a real market to form.
Ben at Watch Brothers has mentioned original 90s retail prices in some of his articles, and they're typically near or approaching Patek prices, I can imagine it would've been a tough sell to get anyone to buy a Blancpain for the same price as a PP!
Oh, 100%. It does make you wonder what could have been. Biver was right there, doing all the right things. You could argue that, at the time, Blancpain was even more innovative that Patek (which was a little slower to re-emerge post quartz crisis). Could have evolved into a Lange or Patek like manufacturer. And then Blancpain was just neglected post Biver…
Yeah, the historical retail prices are fascinating - and not just for Blancpain. You can find so many watches from the 90s / 2000s trading at 20-30% of original retail (before adjusting for inflation!). For instance, tourbillon prices fell off in particular as the complication became easier to produce.
I looked at a Blancpain Villeret complete calendar once but it did feel a little small. Although it wasn’t one of these high complications so maybe not a fair comparison
I love my 34mm Blancpain Leman Flyback. I believe there’s a lot of value in the neovintage pieces but like you said it is kinda deep cut and not for someone’s first watch…so it will forever be a back burner
Aimless men... My wife and I often share examples supporting the unraveling of civil fabric ... the Swatch mess was a recent share (so many other examples, Ryan Air CEO recently mentioned one flight is grounded per day regarding behavior versus one flight per week ten years ago... interestingly, he recommended stopping sale of alcohol so early in the morning in airports).
I owned an 1185 chrono for a while. I actually really liked the simplicity of it, and the roman numerals were some of the few I have found tolerable on a watch. It's a wonderful little gold nugget. But man is it small. I have no problems with a 34mm watch but it wore so tiny on my wrist which, granted, is over 7", but still. I think one on a bracelet would work better and still think about that, but it's pretty far from the top of my list. Seems like enough people know this now that the market probably will continue to be middling, except for the really cool unique ones you mention. Everyone's busy pumping Lange now anyway...
oh wow that hayek interview was something else. no remorse, instead he deflects all blame. no empathy even for his own store employees, let alone the mall-staff or the police.
but this is not yet rock-bottom for swatch-group. there will be more atrocities coming from them, as they fight for their survival in the coming years. they’ve already shown they have no limits, legal (speedy auction fraud) or moral.
I’ve never completely understood the Blancpain Market Malaise. I’m the proud owner of a FF 50th Anniversary (hard to believe it’s now 23 years old!) that I bought several years ago along with several other FF variants (all bought used to avoid Blancpain’s dreadful initial value hit). They are all fantastic watch’s and I like wearing them. Will they ever increase in value? Who knows?
All of this said, it reminds me of the early 2000’s in the wine world when I was buying loads of Burgundy from the likes of Roumier, Mugnier, DRC, Mugngeret-Gibourg, etc., etc. All of my wine collecting friends were buying Bordeaux, California Cults, etc. and they thought I was crazy, but I LOVED Burgundy, enjoyed drinking it and was not particularly fond of Cab-based wines…so I continued to buy what I liked.
Of course there are thousands of cases of Bordeaux produced by the “collectible” Chateaux each year (think Patek as per the example above), but only hundreds of cases of the best Burgundies, so it never made sense to me why they traded for LESS money than the Bordeaux. We all now know what happened…Burgundy prices skyrocketed and Bordeaux flat lined or declined.
I’m not saying Blancpain is DRC to Patek’s Latour, BUT over time when things are beautiful, exceptionally well made and fairly priced (relative to alternatives), the market eventually takes notice. If I was a betting man, this will happen someday with Blancpain…
i (embarrassingly) can't even try to track the wine analogy, but i wrote an essay last year about developing your own taste and i ended with a quote from wine critic Roger Scruton’s "I Drink Therefore I Am," which feels relevant:
“The most important thing to remember when exploring Burgundy is that the world is full of people who are both very rich and very stupid, who can be relied upon to spend virtually unlimited sums of money on products about which they know nothing except that other people as rich and stupid as themselves are spending unlimited sums of money on them. These people are extremely useful to the rest of us, since they put a premium on knowledge. Thus you can know immediately that you won’t be able to afford Le Montrachet, but that it might be worth visiting the place next door.”
That’s a great quote Tony. Funny thing is that when I fell in love with Burgundy it was like a Tudor Blue Snowflake or Rolex 1655 fifteen years ago must have been (I have not been serious about watches long enough to know for sure)…those who loved them were deeply passionate about them BEFORE they became popular and expensive. That’s the way I was with Burgundy…and then, all of the sudden prices went nuts and that’s when I stopped buying. There was a time when Burgundy was far less expensive than Bordeaux and you could actually think about drinking a great bottle without consulting your financial advisor. And, some of the very same people who laughed at my buying Burgundy in 2005 are avid collectors today…and bought wine from me. LOL.
My point being…if you like Blancpain watches, buy them (just not new!). They are well priced for what they are and the fact that the masses have not discovered them? Bonus!
-"Masses of aimless men"
I'll share again here my commentary I provided in a WhatsApp Group and then again in the comment section for a recent ScrewDownCrown.
In our ecosystem there has been much pearl clutching and mockery of those who lined up for one or more days at Swatch outlets for the Royal Pop. But in these same circles, we praise and hold in high regard the constant drove of men, and yes it's always men, who fly business class from around the world to Geneva, leaving wife and kids behind so that they can bring gifts and genuflect to a trove of various watchmakers with the hopes of getting an allocation sometime in the next few years.
The difference between an insane man and an eccentric connoisseur? Their budget.
I literally had this conversation with someone at lunch, as we laughed about a few of our friends travelling to NY/LA this MDW primarily to...visit the FP Journe boutiques and pay their respects (tbc our friends know we laugh at them). but yes i agree these things are not so different
I guess there’s a negative halo from the current state of the brand, which I would describe as “Fifty Fathoms and other stuff”. It’s not quite as extreme as modern Movado depressing vintage Movado. But you could imagine Biver-era Blancpain being grail-like objects if modern Blancpain was in better shape.
It’s also not that easy to collect. I like neovintage Blancpain a lot, and have a couple references that I’m actively looking for. But I’ve been looking for a while.
Production volumes weren’t high in aggregate, and if you’re looking for a particular reference - good luck. Even if one comes up, it might be priced wrong because there aren’t that many precedent transactions (you’ll often see these sit for 6-12+ months).
Finally, a lot of the watches were 34mm. Which is impressive from an engineering standpoint! But a little small for my tastes, even on my tiny wrists.
agreed on all points, to put just one number to your third point: Estimates put the QP chrono 5395 at ~400 pieces. there are about 4k Patek 3970s! 400 is hardly enough for a real market to form.
Ben at Watch Brothers has mentioned original 90s retail prices in some of his articles, and they're typically near or approaching Patek prices, I can imagine it would've been a tough sell to get anyone to buy a Blancpain for the same price as a PP!
Oh, 100%. It does make you wonder what could have been. Biver was right there, doing all the right things. You could argue that, at the time, Blancpain was even more innovative that Patek (which was a little slower to re-emerge post quartz crisis). Could have evolved into a Lange or Patek like manufacturer. And then Blancpain was just neglected post Biver…
Yeah, the historical retail prices are fascinating - and not just for Blancpain. You can find so many watches from the 90s / 2000s trading at 20-30% of original retail (before adjusting for inflation!). For instance, tourbillon prices fell off in particular as the complication became easier to produce.
That split-seconds with a MOP dial is a lil thing of beauty for sure!
I looked at a Blancpain Villeret complete calendar once but it did feel a little small. Although it wasn’t one of these high complications so maybe not a fair comparison
Will you confirm if Amy Odell mentioned “masses of aimless men”, as you quote, or “aimless masses of men”. They seem to
me to be very different meanings, especially in the context. I believe I read the latter of the two but would be fine with being wrong about that.
yes thanks, aimless masses !
I loved the mean Bremont joke.
I love my 34mm Blancpain Leman Flyback. I believe there’s a lot of value in the neovintage pieces but like you said it is kinda deep cut and not for someone’s first watch…so it will forever be a back burner
the best stuff sits on the back burner sometimes!
Absolutely, the 5335 perpetual minute repeater in JPH case is incredibly undervalued!
Aimless men... My wife and I often share examples supporting the unraveling of civil fabric ... the Swatch mess was a recent share (so many other examples, Ryan Air CEO recently mentioned one flight is grounded per day regarding behavior versus one flight per week ten years ago... interestingly, he recommended stopping sale of alcohol so early in the morning in airports).
The short lugs and 34 will always limit these to a purist’s crowd, but hey, I’m not complaining
me neither!
I remember when an 80’s AP perpetual calendar was $10K, then Wei Koh wrote an article for Revolution and then all of a sudden they were 20K
the koh bump may not have been the same as the clymer bump, but it was still effective
I owned an 1185 chrono for a while. I actually really liked the simplicity of it, and the roman numerals were some of the few I have found tolerable on a watch. It's a wonderful little gold nugget. But man is it small. I have no problems with a 34mm watch but it wore so tiny on my wrist which, granted, is over 7", but still. I think one on a bracelet would work better and still think about that, but it's pretty far from the top of my list. Seems like enough people know this now that the market probably will continue to be middling, except for the really cool unique ones you mention. Everyone's busy pumping Lange now anyway...
LOL re Lange
oh wow that hayek interview was something else. no remorse, instead he deflects all blame. no empathy even for his own store employees, let alone the mall-staff or the police.
but this is not yet rock-bottom for swatch-group. there will be more atrocities coming from them, as they fight for their survival in the coming years. they’ve already shown they have no limits, legal (speedy auction fraud) or moral.
I’ve never completely understood the Blancpain Market Malaise. I’m the proud owner of a FF 50th Anniversary (hard to believe it’s now 23 years old!) that I bought several years ago along with several other FF variants (all bought used to avoid Blancpain’s dreadful initial value hit). They are all fantastic watch’s and I like wearing them. Will they ever increase in value? Who knows?
All of this said, it reminds me of the early 2000’s in the wine world when I was buying loads of Burgundy from the likes of Roumier, Mugnier, DRC, Mugngeret-Gibourg, etc., etc. All of my wine collecting friends were buying Bordeaux, California Cults, etc. and they thought I was crazy, but I LOVED Burgundy, enjoyed drinking it and was not particularly fond of Cab-based wines…so I continued to buy what I liked.
Of course there are thousands of cases of Bordeaux produced by the “collectible” Chateaux each year (think Patek as per the example above), but only hundreds of cases of the best Burgundies, so it never made sense to me why they traded for LESS money than the Bordeaux. We all now know what happened…Burgundy prices skyrocketed and Bordeaux flat lined or declined.
I’m not saying Blancpain is DRC to Patek’s Latour, BUT over time when things are beautiful, exceptionally well made and fairly priced (relative to alternatives), the market eventually takes notice. If I was a betting man, this will happen someday with Blancpain…
i (embarrassingly) can't even try to track the wine analogy, but i wrote an essay last year about developing your own taste and i ended with a quote from wine critic Roger Scruton’s "I Drink Therefore I Am," which feels relevant:
“The most important thing to remember when exploring Burgundy is that the world is full of people who are both very rich and very stupid, who can be relied upon to spend virtually unlimited sums of money on products about which they know nothing except that other people as rich and stupid as themselves are spending unlimited sums of money on them. These people are extremely useful to the rest of us, since they put a premium on knowledge. Thus you can know immediately that you won’t be able to afford Le Montrachet, but that it might be worth visiting the place next door.”
https://www.unpolishedwatches.com/p/how-to-actually-develop-good-taste
That’s a great quote Tony. Funny thing is that when I fell in love with Burgundy it was like a Tudor Blue Snowflake or Rolex 1655 fifteen years ago must have been (I have not been serious about watches long enough to know for sure)…those who loved them were deeply passionate about them BEFORE they became popular and expensive. That’s the way I was with Burgundy…and then, all of the sudden prices went nuts and that’s when I stopped buying. There was a time when Burgundy was far less expensive than Bordeaux and you could actually think about drinking a great bottle without consulting your financial advisor. And, some of the very same people who laughed at my buying Burgundy in 2005 are avid collectors today…and bought wine from me. LOL.
My point being…if you like Blancpain watches, buy them (just not new!). They are well priced for what they are and the fact that the masses have not discovered them? Bonus!