Easily the leading candidate for watches that “feel” like a a lot more than the price would suggest, in my very humble opinion, and the subject of numerous wonderful articles and reviews of yesteryear.

If you’ve been following for any length of time (thank you), you know the Villeret line, and specifically the Reference 7002 are some of my favorite watches. Today, we have one of the rarest of all the 7002 family with the limited production of just 20 in steel to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Wempe in Hamburg, Germany, complete with box and Wempe signed papers.

Dial: The flawless matte-eggshell white dial gets a decidedly different take with the use of applied black-polished Roman numerals. The absence of the outer minutes track provides a visually appealing and deceptive negative space to make the watch wear larger with a very stately, extremely clean and well balanced dial layout. The classically elegant leaf hands are a perfect balance to the Roman numerals to complete the dial.

Case: The 36mm stainless steel case is just 6.8mm thin with its thin signature double shoulder bezel and nicely sized signed crown. The 7002 was the brand’s first (and only at the time) stainless steel case to feature a sapphire caseback displaying the beautifully finished movement.

Movement: the manually wound Blancpain caliber 64-1 is a heavily modified and finished Pseaux 7001 that was Blancpain’s only certified chronometer at time of launch. The watch is winding, setting, and running smoothly at approximately -16 s/d averaged across six positions

Includes: Presented a Camille Fournet Paris alligator strap with signed steel buckle, as a full set including the original outer and inner boxes, manual, and serial matching guarantee with Wempe stamp, which is difficult to find on an already rare watch.