Review - Blancpain Villeret Quantième Complet 6654

[DarthPistachio 0]

Over the years I have searched for specific kinds of watches that satisfied my peculiar tastes – unsuccessfully I might add until I decided to delve into the world of Replicas to satisfy my need for a particular kind of watch that just wasn’t available in the bottom end of the market. I’ve always been a fan of Moon Phase watches and handily this tends to narrow the choice out there quite a bit – so the goal was to find a rep with a “working” moon phase function instead of just a common day night complication.

I decided on the Blanc Pain Villeret as my first model in this niche and after searching around the various TD sites  I decided on Trusty time and placed my order.  There was an initial problem with payment (bank needed approval from me) and then everything went through.

The Original

https://www.blancpain.com/en/watch/6654-1127-55b

This watch uses a complicated set of levers and gears to allow the user to modify any of the complications at any time of the day with no fear of damaging the mechanism in anyway. And it lets you adjust the complications in a unique way – via manually operated pushers located under each of the lugs.

Here is a tech drawing of how the original achieves this:

 

As you can see that’s a pretty complicated setup – and that’s essentially what you’re paying for in the original – and they start at about £10 K and rise upwards.

The Rep:

Five days after receiving QC pics from the TD – the watch arrived. Dead as doornail as they say. I had already done some research and was reliably informed that the watch was hand windable/automatic wind.

So I wound it 40 times clockwise and it promptly came to life.

First issue – The strap  – it’s a nice strap – deployment clasp and leather BUT – I have what I would say is an average sized wrist – but the strap just was too small. – I’ve put a stainless strap on it for the time being – I am a fan of leather but this will do for now. The lug width is 22mm and they use bent pins in case you need to do the same.

 

Sapphire front and back and the dimensions are:

• Case diameter 39.75mm

• Lug to Lug – approx. 45mm

• Thickness: 12.5 mm

NOTE: There are various models available on the various TD sites – some of them are marked V2 – we should assume this is the Version 2 which theoretically should be better with any issues addressed from the first version. The prices are the SAME – so you should opt for V2.

You will also come across some marked as using a modified A21J or A23J movement and other sites will state that it is using a modified Miyota 9015 movement.  My TD didn’t really answer that question when I posed it and during transit also stated to me in comms that it was NOT a working moon phase and just a day night indicator. Which to be honest annoyed me a bit.

But when it turned up – I  put it through its paces. -- Now there is no way that a rep is going to perfectly clone the actual movement on the original! So although the original can be manually adjusted at ANY time – the rep certainly won’t be able to! First thing to do is check the crown operation.First positon (usually for day and date) does nothing – as would be expected and has probably been modified so that it’s inoperative as the lugs do this work now.  Second position works the hands – anti clockwise to move them forward and that’s the first thing to do keep winding the crown and find out when everything changes.  One thing to note at this stage – the movement is hackable. On this model it was as follows:

• Date arm advances between 11pm and 12am

• ·         Day indicator advances between 1am-3am

• ·         Moon Phase advances between 4am-5am

Out of interest the original does it this way:

• ·         Moon advances after 7.30pm

• ·         Day and date advances between 1am-2am

It’s therefore safe to assume adjustments can be made safely between about 10am and 7pm to give yourself a good margin – so I wound the watch forward to that time period and tried the lug adjusters.

 

They all work fine and probably use some levers to press the actual push adjusters on the movement and as such they ARE a little stiff to operate (might get better with time) but be confident when adjusting and ensure that you get a good index on the complications when you press them – you might need to press twice on some of them to complete the indexing if you didn’t push it in enough first time..

The good news is that the moon phase is a working one! – It did not revolve a full rotation when winding on with the crown and indexed a small amount regularly in the early AM. HOWEVER – the moon indicator moves Anti-Clockwise which for anyone in the northern hemisphere will seem “wrong” – there’s not much you can do about that except to train your brain to work with it!

I’m not sure quite how they have achieved a working moon phase as the miyota 9015 doesn’t come off the shelf with that ability and the miyota movements with moonphase are all quartz AFAIK.

It’s more than likely a bolt on module – I’m not in a hurry to disassemble it to have a look any time soon!

The month indicator does NOT automatically index at the transition from 31 to 1 and needs to be manually adjusted every month. Also you need to manually adjust for 30 month days also with the day indicator.

A closer look:

This movement looks to me that it’s more than likely a Miyota 9015 that’s been modified – however I’m no expert and would like confirmation from those more in the know.

But comparatively it looks like it is inded a M9015 with the top setup of the balance wheel being a FAKE one with the ACTUAL Miyota balance jewel setup sitting just underneath it

There are a set of decorative plates modded on top of the movement with faux gears and maybe even a few faux jewels to mimic the original – but it won’t fool anyone at even a modest glance as its obvious many of the gears do nothing and look like they have just been superglued in place. Indicated here with yellow arrows.

The blue arrow here indicates a gear wheel that moves with the rotor and looks very much like a Miyota gear further indicating its identity

The quality of the printing on the face and the numerals – hands etc is top notch

Negatives:

Not many to be truthful – everything works as it should however there are a few small issues…

I find myself questioning whether the rotor is actually doing any winding? In that if I Hand wind it 40 times it will last 3-4 days and then promptly stop in the morning after sitting on the bedside cabinet for the night. And it seems that either I do not move enough to keep the coil wound up via the rotor or the rotor doesn’t actually do anything much. This has happened about 4 times now – The last occasion I even put it on an auto watch winder for the night – about 9 hours and found the movement had stopped again regardless. When the watch is fully hand wound the rotor will only spin anti clockwise – and boy will it spin – like a fidget spinner! When “empty” the rotor will actually move in a clockwise direction then – presumably actually now doing some winding ??

I’m going to try putting it on the watch winder every night for the foreseeable future to see if the rotor will actually keep the power reserve at a respectable level – but at the moment it seems as though the rotor isn’t actually doing much and I may have to manually wind this watch every 2 days or so to keep it working – which is a bit annoying but tolerable as it keeps great time when it has fuel in the tank.

The other possibility is that there may be a bit of assembly detritus in there that sometimes jams a gear? Under a microscope you can see little hairs and strands of glue and the worry is that maybe one of these is assuming the role of gremlin in the works of the watch.

The other issue is that the back does not appear to have an easily discernible method of removing it? – I would have to assume that you would have to lever the back off using the spaces above the lug adjusters. TD states it is waterproof - but due to the nature of the lug adjusters and what is probably a press-fit back – I wouldn’t realistically risk getting it too wet!

And lastly – It can be at times difficult to read quickly – in certain indoor artificial lighting the numerals and hands get a bit washed out – in daylight or strong light its superb. I maybe should have gone for the darker blue dial – maybe next time 

To summarise – for your money you get a lot and it’s a great looking watch that keeps excellent time when it’s got juice in the tank. Working moon phase of high quality (not just painted on), hackable and manual wind capable (thank god).

RECOMMENDED! 

 

 

 

 

[KarmaToBurn 1,419]

One hell of a first post there!

 

Thanks for the thorough review of a not so common rep. 

[Glaude 1,615]

Indeed this is one hell of a first post ! 

Excellent technical review that complete very well the other done by @semperfi55 on this model ! 

This is a really great content and I'm looking forward to see more contributions like this from you !

[DarthPistachio 0]

cheers ! In at the deep end as they say! 

I felt it only fair to give the kind of review I would be looking for if I was contemplating this watch for the first time

 

 

[DarthPistachio 0]

Just an addendum:

 

Watch stopped again this mroning despite being on a watch winder every night for the last few days - I can't determine yet if its either a faulty rotor or whether the winding mechanism/clutch setup is not working. My top suspect is still a bit of debris inside maybe gumming up the works occasionally.

 

Can anyone recommend a good place to get it serviced?

 

Cheers 

 

 

[DarthPistachio 0]

A little bit of an Update:

 

I sent it off to a good watch service repairer to have alook at the possible cause of the power issues.

The conclusion that he came to was that the rotor that was used was too thin and did not have enough heft to wind the mainspring properly.  More than likely down to the fact that the rep maker places a complete rep cover over and above the original miyota movement and as a result leave s very  little room for a rotor that can maintain some mass and still look like the one they are trying to replicate. During the process he did confirm for me that it WAS a modified Miyota movement.

After trying a few different mainsprings  i informed him to remove the fake parts out of the back of the watch - as I did not have a particular desire to keep those parts (the front being the more important for me) and to replace the rotor with one from the Miyota of which it originally would have had. I have now had it back a month or two and it keeps good time on the wrist but my watch winder doesn't do a great job of keeping things going (not enough revolutiosn per day i suspect) and the watch needs an occasional manual wind top up about once every 7-10 days.