Blancpain

Am I crazy? I find the pure aesthetics of the Blancpain 5395 just more appealing: the clean layout, the moonface, the typeface/logo gives me more emotion than the Patek 3940. Only thing that gives me pause is the 34mm vs 36mm in terms of wearability. What...  

…where they don’t ‘flip’ the Romans. I much prefer the Patek hands. And size matters…3940 for me all day.

except for the 50 Fathoms. AP, to a lesser degree, has the same problem with the Royal Oak. Some brands become overwhelmed by, or noted only for, a certain model that becomes an icon.

I agree with all you say about the Blancpain as it is just so much more legible and I really don't like two pointers in a sub dial. Marc

Thus, setting the Blancpain is going to be an absolute pain with a lot of guesswork as there is no leap year indicator visible. So, yes, Blancpain wins in the lack of clutter, but it's not displaying the all-important leap year indicator!

….it kind of doesn’t matter, right? You just advance to the correct date, assuming you wear it at least a couple of times a year - no guesswork. The first time can be trickier of course - but it’s not enough for me to weigh against the reference as a whol... 

If you're like me, I don't wear a watch everyday because I don't leave my home every day (I only wear a watch outside of my home since I have electronic clocks everywhere in my home). So the watch would inevitably stop. True, I could put it on a winder! I... 

I am as guilty as others of not wearing my QP constantly - my point is that, assuming you have worn it previously in 2025 (say), you already know what year it’s set to. If it says “5 July”, move it to 10 October, figure out the moonphase and you’re good t... 

The size is the only “limitation”.

It's not a fair comparison to say the Patek is more cluttered, as the Patek displays MUCH more information on the dial, there is a 24 hour indicator AND a very IMPORTANT LEAP YEAR indicator!!! Super difficult to set the Blancpain Perpetual Calendar withou... 

I was just highlighting that the roman numerals are readable and don’t clutter the Blancpain dial.👍🏽

I'd say I like the clutter-less Blancpain dial. But when it comes to setting the watch - I do suppose I need a leap year indicator of some sort!

As much as I want to say the Blancpain, the Villeret line just doesn’t do it for me, and I gotta say the Patek wins here. I prefer the more bold hands and 34mm is too small for me.

Have you tried setting the Blancpain 5395? There's no leap year indicator... Which makes this watch a pain to set.

So while the Blancpain is nice it’s no 3940 imho.

This tends to confirm that BP is very far from the hype of other brands, even though they have very nice watches in the range.

Dial/hands/markers/size - I prefer all of these on this pp among these two.