Has anyone had experience with the Blancpain vintage department? I am used to Omega and Longines, where getting an extract and information is quite easy. I emailed BP customer service and they were very quick to reply and asked to see several photos of the watch. They resonded, "We have shown the pictures to our head of the Vintage workshop and your timepiece shows all the visual characteristics of a Blancpain Bathyscaphe from the 50s." (No Shit) They offer a free historical analysis but requested that I send them the watch...and said it could take up to 6 months Just wanted to see if anyone has done this, and if so, were the results worth the wait?
I totally agree, that's why I wanted to find out if anyone has done it. I feel like photos of the watch and movement should be sufficient as long as the serial is clearly seen, which it is.
There’s an interesting review on TZ forums about Blancpain’s vintage department. http://forums.timezone.com/index.php?t=tree&goto=7562273&rid=0#msg_7562273 But I do not know why they need your watch if you just want an extract and don’t want it to get serviced/restored.
Very interesting link, thank you for sharing! I really enjoyed reading that. I guess they want the watch in hand to confirm authenticity, as the author of the link suggests. They probably issue a certificate of authenticity as well as an extract based on this evaluation. It is also probably two-fold; they want to see more examples in hand to add to their vintage catalog.
Thanks for posting the link @Yuriae They seem like a very professional and dedicated team. The article didn't mention how many staff work at the atelier but given the number of incoming watches, the nature of their work and the mention of four workstations one could understand why it takes so long to have work undertaken.