however, despite years of investment, Blancpain had never gained the cache of the eld Great Three in the auction or collectors markets - undermined no doubt by its dubious history and the often mediocre quality of extant vintage Blancpains. Breguet had the history, the real history, and a legacy of watches in the vintage market only rivaled by auction darling Patek Philippe. What it lacked was credibility in the modern marketplace in the wake of Chaumet and Investcorp. As mechanical wristwatches are a traditional product marketed and sold on the perception of authenticity, it is the creation of this perception in the mind of the collector which has necessarily become priority one at Swatch and Montres Breguet. Authenticity in the case of the Breguet brand is conceptually different than that of most other established brands, which are heirs - at least in name - to strong watchmaking dynasties. Breguet as a brand is really representative of a single man and of his unique vision. Without Abraham-Louis Breguet the watchmaking house is not of any particular historical significance, as most of its rather quiet history demonstrates. The potential authenticity of Montres Breguet products lies quite simply in a restoration of that personal vision, not through replicas per se, but in craftsmanship and design following the philosophy which he set forth, in continuing a tradition begun by the watches crafted in Paris during his lifetime. It is a philosophy of watchmaking better upheld by independent watchmaker George Daniels than by the house of Breguet under any ownership in the last 150 years - including the Breguets themselves. The task of restoring the Breguet brand has been personally taken up by horological Caesar Nicolas Hayek, the builder of the Swatch empire. While remaining chairman, Hayek resigned his position as president and CEO of the Swatch Group in June of 2002, evidently to make Montres Breguet his primary priority, where he now serves as Directeur Général. This is akin to a king abdicating his throne to personally captain a single company in his army, albeit an elite one. If one were to undertake the transformation of a boutique watchmaker to mass manufacturer today, one would no doubt approach it differently - something more akin to the recreation of A. Lange & Söhne. Hayek instead is faced with some three decades of brand mismanagement and a muddled legacy product line, both of which require extensive repair to achieve the lofty goals that have been set for Montres Breguet. The loftiest goal stated publicly is to increase production from the present sub-10,000 pieces per year, to 25,000 pieces per year by 2010. This is comparable to the mechanical watch production of Patek Philippe, and Montres Breguet makes no quartz watches. By that point in time the house also intends to have opened 30 Breguet boutiques in major cities around the world, which will also sell exclusive Breguet branded luxury products like the new Breguet fountain pens, as well as jewelry. This would seem to indicate that Breguet will be as targeted at Richemont's Cartier as much as at the haute horlogerie throne. Last, there has been hint of the coming a Breguet school of watchmaking. The average luxury watch consumer may never really learn who AL Breguet was, and may be more interested in the celebrity patrons of the past rather than in the great horologer, but the "Breguet" brand is one that they will no doubt know soon enough, assuming that the market can absorb those 25,000 watches per year. The action taken thus far by Montres Breguet under Hayek's captaincy have centered around the need to remove every significant AL Breguet and Breguet et Fils watch from the secondary market at any price, to make them the exclusive province of the new Montres Breguet owned museum at Place Vendome in Paris, and another museum to be opened in Geneva by the Swatch Group. This has limited the house's ability to remove the abundance of cheap Chaumet and Investcorp era Breguets from the secondary market as well - legacy watches currently undercutting the price credibility of new Breguet wristwatches. In the short term Montres Breguet has elected to take another hit to this critical element of market perception by deeply cutting its prices across the board. The aforementioned ref. 3130 has had its price reduced to $22,700 - nearly a 28% reduction, bringing it more in line with the comparable 5054, though still likely considered at a premium for a non-manufacture product. This will hopefully bolster long term price credibility, and reduce the deep discounting and dumping which was undermining its overall credibility. No doubt a prime motivator in creating Breguet boutiques around the globe is to limit the discounting which undercuts resale values - and there is little that most luxury watch buyers like more than high resale value. The most significant step taken thus far by Swatch to uplift the image of Breguet brand watches is the termination of all sales of Nouvelle Lemania ebauches outside of the Group. This has sent shockwaves through an industry which was heavily dependent upon Lemania's chronographs, tourbillons, and repeaters. Within the next year or two all remaining contracts will have been satisfied, and Lemania calibres will be Breguet calibres in truth. In some years time this may begin to undo some of damage done by years of unrestrained Lemania ebauche sales. A possible final stroke to divide Breguet from the perception of etablissage would be the renaming of Nouvelle Lemania, which on www.breguet.com is - as of this writing - referred to as "Manufacture Breguet." But while this begins to address some of the issues of movement exclusivity and the modern cult of the manufacture which many modern collectors are so fascinated with, we wonder in the midst of all of these grand plans and sweeping changes, has anything been done to improve the watches themselves? This is a question we will explore in Part II.