Brand history
Founded by Jehan-Jacques Blancpain in Villeret in the Bernese Jura; the modern brand operates its haute-horlogerie manufacture in Le Brassus, alongside Breguet under the Swatch Group.
Brand name registered by Jehan-Jacques Blancpain in Villeret in 1735, though the watchmaking lineage of the early generations is contested and parts of the brand’s "oldest watchmaker" claim don’t fully survive scrutiny. The story we can verify with confidence picks up in the quartz crisis: Blancpain was effectively dissolved into Omega by 1980, and in 1983 SSIH sold the name to Jacques Piguet and Jean-Claude Biver, who re-launched it from Le Brassus with the now-famous "since 1735, there has never been a quartz Blancpain, and there never will be" positioning. Swatch Group repurchased the brand in 1992. The Fifty Fathoms (1953, developed with the French Navy’s combat-swimmer unit) predates the Submariner by a year and is one of the foundational dive-watch designs; the modern Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe and Villeret dress line anchor the catalog, alongside the Air Command flyback chronograph reissue. The honest buyer’s note: Blancpain charges holy-trinity-adjacent prices and the movements (often by Frédéric Piguet, now Manufacture Blancpain) are very good, but the brand sits a step below Patek/AP/Vacheron on resale and trade reputation. The Fifty Fathoms is what most buyers are actually here for.
