THE HISTORY OF BLANCPAIN

IN TIME
plication developed in the generous dimensions
of pocket watches, and through towering
creativity, inventiveness, and prodigious
hand craft skills, realising them in the greatly
reduced scale of a wristwatch. So in this milieu
of the Lilliputian, exactly where does this place
the “large date”? Here is a complication, to be
sure based on small components, whose claim
to fame is large; large in the universe of the
small. Jumbo shrimp indeed.
Blancpain is not alone in offering a large
date system; many in the industry have
The Leman Tourbillon
Transparence limited
to 27 examples.
incorporated large dates in watches throughout
their collections. Industry wide, all of
these large date systems, at the most
simplfied level, are the same. They all utilise
a combination of two discs, in some form, to
compose the date and thereby achieve a display
size far exceeding what a single disc
could attain. What distinguishes one from
another is the cleverness and creativity of
the movement designer in finding a way to
drive and synchronise the two discs so that
the date always displays correctly. Thus,
paradoxically, the challenges of fitting a date
display as large as possible into the constricted
dimensions of a wristwatch movement
are essentially identical to those posed by
going the other way, miniaturising complications
from large pocket watches for adoption
in wristwatches; it falls to the designer
and his engineering skill.
When Blancpain undertook to develop its
module 69 large date mechanism, the requirements
were far more rigorous than mere
size, drive and synchronisation. Of course size