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Blancpain

Switzerland · Founded 1735

Founded 1735 by Jehan-Jacques Blancpain in Villeret, Switzerland. Passed through several owners after the founding family exited management in 1932, was absorbed into Omega/SSIH during the 1970s quartz crisis, then relaunched independently in 1983 by Jean-Claude Biver and Jacques Piguet. Acquired by the Swatch Group in 1992 and still operates as one of its manufacture brands, headquartered at Le Brassus with production numbers deliberately kept low. Note: the 1735 founding date is Blancpain's own marketing claim, not an independently documented fact -- the company's own communications cited 1815 as the founding year until the mid-20th century, when 1735 was retroactively constructed around an ancestor whose watchmaking activity in that year has never been documented.