Blancpain

So I sent in my Flyback Chrono in for service 3 months ago. Went in with a slightly faded with patina dial and hands, and came back with a new dial and hands with superluminova. I asked for the new dial because I knew they were going to replace the hands with superluminova and I didn’t want the mismatched color to the dial with tritium. I noticed that the dial is a little different in that if you look at the 11 marker, in the tritium dial, the 1 from the 11 covers the length of the 55 above it, whereas on the new dial, the 1 from the 11 only covers the length of the 5 from the 55. Also, the large chrono second hand is different. The counterweight is shorter as well as the pointed tip with the red marking being smaller. The Blancpain writing in the new dial seems more bold as well. There’s also no blue hue on the AR coating in the new crystal which I much prefer.  Before: 


After:

That patina was nice.

They looked so nice...

They didn’t give back any old parts. It’s strange because when I got my Speedmaster back from service, they did give me back all my old parts. I just sent an email to my service advisor at Blancpain NYC to ask him why the old parts weren’t returned to me. I also pointed out to him how I noticed the new Chrono second hand sweep hand is shorter in length than the original one. I’ll let you guys know what he says. 

So my service rep at Blancpain NYC showed me Swatch Service’s response to my request for my original parts back. This is what they said. I told my service rep that when I had my Speedy serviced in Switzerland, they gave all my old parts back. Guess if they service in the US and order parts from Switzerland, they have to send parts to get the new parts. 

I can understand wanting them to send the old parts to headquarters so that everything is legit, but once sent, they should realize that it is for the repair and then the old parts should be sent back too to the owner.

The Leman Flyback was available for many years with full luminova, so it's not complete sacrilege ;-)

I agree. They did that when I sent in my old Speedy and it does look a little weird to me sometimes.

 you were in- I once did that with a red sub and hated the service dial but I like yours- enjoy 😊

Yeah, I had no choice. The watch was running like 50 sec fast a day and power reserve was very low, so I had to service it.

Buff off the AR coating yourself on the outside. I did after many scratches. Used a dremel with felt tip and metal polish. Just need to tape off the double stepped bezel so as not to damage it.

I tried that on my car lights (with mixed results, and some "polished" body work on the side on the lights) but would never dare to do it on a watch

But the scratches on the AR bothered me so much I decided to try it. Turned out great as you can see from the first pic above. I never liked that bluish tint of that original AR coating. I’m glad the new crystal replacements don’t have that.

the sapphire glass. 😁

The lume freak in me will always choose function first, at least for watches I wear the most.

Thanks…I think it does look good still. To me, it feels like wearing a new watch vs a vintage one.

Of course very subjective ....

Where are the domed pins that you are referring to?

I see now. Yes, it looks like they did. I had to just look at a bunch of other pics of Leman Flybacks and noticed a lot of the later ones also show a hollow pin as well, so I’m not as concerned but thanks for pointing that out! You have a good eye!

They did answer my questions, and basically said that they don’t provide the old parts back and won’t comment on the change in handset cause they don’t have it in their shop to see the watch in person right now. So be it. I guess I’ll just have to be happy with what I got back, and I pretty much am because the service seems to have been done well. No specks of dust in the watch dial, no misaligned hands, and all functions work correctly including the flyback feature. Watch still looks amazing so I’ll let it be.

Enjoyed your video too, BTW, thank you for sharing.