There are some watches that I have been eagerly awaiting to be released as a proper rep at some point, but where I never expected the Chinese to honour my wishes due to the complications and lack of recognition or popularity. The Blancpain Villeret Quantième Complet 6654 was one of these watches. For me, this watch belongs to the grail watches. It looks wonderfully anachronistic with its combination of the curved date hand with its round scale and the antique-looking moon on the moon phase. Added to this is the discreet colouring and the harmonious dimensions with a diameter of 40 mm and a thickness of 10.5 mm. Reps of this model have been around for some time, but they are more at AAA level and have little to do with the Gen and also have no functioning complications. Now APS has taken on the Quantième Complet (French for ‘complete calendar’) and the day I saw the announcement, I blindly ordered it. A mistake?
The Gen
Villeret is a small municipality in the Swiss canton of Bern. Swiss watchmaking began here around 1735 with the founding of Blancpain, the oldest watch brand in the world to this day. With the Villeret series, Blancpain wants to commemorate its glorious history and pay homage to the traditional art of watchmaking. This is of course recognisable in the design of the 6654. I don't want to go into too much detail here. The unique selling point of this model is the patented adjustment of the complications. Whereas other ‘Grand Horlogerie’ brands disfigure the lines of their watches with ‘ugly’ pushers on the flanks, Blancpain has found a solution for the 6654 that is both visually and technically very harmonious. The complications are adjusted using four small adjusters (levers) positioned on the back at the base of the horns. This is a challenge for a Rep.
One of the adjusters on the caseback
The 6654 bears the name ‘Complete Calendar’ and this is also the name of the genre. A ‘Complete Calendar’ differs from a ‘Perpetual Calendar’ not only by the absence of the year display, but also by the fact that the movement does not take into account the different number of days per month. A Complete Calendar must therefore be set manually at the change of month in all months with 28, 29 or 30 days. This in turn is a relief for a Rep, as genuine perpetual calendar movements are highly complex and prohibitively expensive for Reps in this form.
The Rep
My expectations of the APS were not so high due to the technical challenges for this model. But APS surprised me in a positive way. But first things first.
The APS is almost as big as the Gen. Both have a diameter of 40mm, the APS is 12.0mm thick, while the Gen is slightly thinner at 10.9mm. This is not perfect, but not really dramatic either.
In general, the workmanship is good. The indices are cleanly crafted and reflect the light beautifully thanks to their high-gloss polish (or coating?). The details - such as the moon face - are beautifully crafted. Only at very high zoom levels can minor inaccuracies be recognised with a macro lens. In particular, the printing of the day and month disc and the logo on the dial show slight errors.
However, this is complaining on a very high level, as these errors cannot be seen with the naked eye. The only recognisable flaw is the slightly too bright background of the moon disc - the 5712 reps send their regards.
Incidentally, this is where the comparison with the Gen becomes complicated. The 6654 has been produced in this colour variant for over 10 years and there are apparently various iterations of the model - some have a black moon phase background and a silver moon, while others have a ‘silver’ background for the date scale. The APS version corresponds visually to the earlier models, which are presented in this YouTube review for example and most of the visual features are correct here. However, there are some minor inaccuracies. On closer inspection, for example, you can see that the distance between the day and month windows is slightly larger on the APS and the windows are generally slightly smaller. Here, APS certainly had to make concessions to the movement used.
Incidentally, the movement is a big question mark - at least for me. APS advertises it as a 6654 clone, but this is more marketing. The layout is completely different, even if the decoration is certainly nice. Incidentally, the rotor also has a guilloche pattern, but this is less pronounced and therefore difficult to recognise in static images. Of course, the APS is no super-rep, but you don't have that claim anyway.
What is much more important is that the adjustment of the complications via the adjusters on the back actually works! However, the resistance is higher than on the Gen, so you shouldn't have overly delicate fingernails. However, the assignment is the same.
This is a real highlight for me. Chapeau APS!
Do all the complications work? Yes and no. The day, date and moon phase work perfectly, but unfortunately the month does not switch automatically, although it can be adjusted manually (see above). Nevertheless, this is a technical masterpiece for a Rep!
I can't say at this stage whether the movement is stable and will last a long time. If you are on a tight budget, you should be careful. It is questionable whether you can even get spare parts for this very special rep movement. If the movement turns out to be vulnerable and something breaks, you can safely write off the watch.
What else is there to say? What surprised me was the strap. It is unusually short. Although I wear the watch quite tightly, my delicate 17.5 mm strap is already at the last hole where you can wear both keepers. If you have more than 18.5mm, you will have problems here. The quality of the strap is not particularly good - too stiff, but not a disaster either. But you know that from rep straps. I'm going to get a new strap for the watch. Unfortunately, Blancpain uses a width of 22mm here, which is unusually wide for Croc straps for dress watches.
Conclusion
APS has delivered. The APS Villeret Quantième Complet 6654 may not be a Super-Rep, but it is a great addition to this segment. We always complain that the larger factories only ever release Rolex, Rolex, Rolex and maybe AP and Patek models; now APS has taken on a more exotic, technically complex model and achieved a thoroughly respectable result. I'm happy and hope that the watch will last as long as possible. And I hope that APS will soon tackle the other colour variants as well. So I give this model a clear buy recommendation.
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