Jaeger-LeCouLtre celebrates 180 years of innovation with a

By Michael Thompson
Jaeger-LeCoultre celebrates 180 years of innovation
with a collection that honors founder Antoine LeCoultre.
This addition to the Master
Grande Tradition collection,
the Cylindrique à Quantième
Perpétuel (see this month’s
cover), is a tourbillon model
with complete perpetual
calendar functionality.
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Jaeger-LeCoultre headquarters in Le Sentier
he term ‘manufacture’ is one of those
words continually overused by watchmaking companies today. Contrary to
those who feel any horological assembly work done within four walls
defines the word, it should actually
refer only to firms that employ a vertical supply chain and make all major
components within the confines of
their facilities.
As ill-used as the term is today, no
Swiss watchmaking company actually
considered themselves a ‘manufacture’ until 1866 when, it has been said, Antoine LeCoultre imported the idea from the
United States and England, where numerous
manufacturers, including several watchmaking companies, employed industrialized vertical integrated manufacturing.
Until LeCoultre put this import to practice
in its hometown of Le Sentier in Switzerland’s
Vallee de Joux, Swiss watchmakers did their
work within the établissage system of independent, mostly home-based watchmakers
who sent their work on to assemblers, finishers and distributors primarily in Geneva.
After a period of adjustment, LeCoultre
and partner August Borgeaud’s new and pioneering ‘manufacture,’ then called Manufacture LeCoultre Borgeaud & Cie, succeeded in
convincing the local naysayers that indeed
a centralized workspace would be advantageous to both horological innovation and
quality control. The company flourished.
Making calibers
Between 1860 and 1900, the company created
more than 350 different calibers, half of them
made with one or more complications. Among
them were ninety-nine different repeater
movements, 128 chronographs (including
thirty-two split seconds models) and eight different thin calibers.
In 1877 Borgeaud and Antoine LeCoultre
retired, and LeCoultre’s three sons changed
the company name to LeCoultre & Cie. Eleven
years later, by 1888, the company was one of
the region’s largest employers (at 480 workers—half of them at the Le Sentier location) and
the single most powerful economic engine in
the region.
“The company was the Grande Maison in
the Valley de Joux,” explains Stephane Belmont, Jaeger-LeCoultre international marketing and technical director. “We made the complications. Others specialized in the wheels and
pinions, but we were first to create the whole
movement and complications, and this is important for us.”
The movements that emerged from this
Grande Maison could be found inside every
important maker’s watches across the globe.
For example, a collector of the day might
have purchased a Patek Philippe minute repeater split seconds pocket watch at retailer
Tiffany & Co. bearing a movement made at
LeCoultre in Le Sentier.
To Belmont, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s 19th Century
success story is too often overlooked in light of
The art of watchmaking at the Jaeger-LeCoultre
Manufacture.
Lower left: Caliber 101, the smallest manual-wind
movement, was developed in 1929 and continues
to be placed into watches today.
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the firm’s multitude of 20th century milestones
like the debuts of the firm’s famed Reverso, its
Atmos clocks, the Duoplan or the Memovox,
among others. To address such oversights he
and Jaeger-LeCoultre have during all of 2013
steered a new focus on those first six decades
when the company’s pocket watch design and
complicated movement innovation helped
forge the company’s reputation as “the watchmaker’s watchmaker.”
The Jubilee
Jaeger-LeCoultre this past January debuted
its Jubilee 180th anniversary collection to
honor those early decades, which pre-dated
and set the tone for the first meetings between
Edmond Jaeger and the founder’s grandson
Jacques-David LeCoultre just after the start of
the 20th century. Officially called the Jubilée
Hommage à Antoine LeCoultre collection,
these watches are inspired by “180 years of enthusiasm, obstinacy and precision. In short, the
creative force of Antoine LeCoultre,” according
to Belmont.
Consisting of three limited-edition watches,
the Jubilee collection features a Master Grande
Tradition model, an ultra-thin model and a new
addition to the Hybris Mechanica collection.
Each is made in platinum and all three feature
the company’s founding year of “1833” on the
dial, as well as finishing that echoes the caliber
and case finishes Jaeger-LeCoultre artisans
used on its 19th century pocket watches.
Tourbillon perpetual
The first model, the newest addition to the
Master Grande Tradition, is the Cylindrique à
Quantième Perpétuel (see this month’s cover),
a tourbillon model with complete perpetual
calendar functionality.
On this watch, the tourbillon appears to be
suspended in mid-air at the heart of the movement while the perpetual calendar provides a
clear display of the day, date, month and year,
and moon phases. The seconds are read via an
indicator on the flying tourbillon.
Equipped with the new Jaeger-LeCoultre
985 automatic movement, the watch is the first
to combine a flying tourbillon with a cylindrical
balance spring, thus guaranteeing a very high
level of timekeeping performance.
And, in tribute to the forward-thinking tech-
RIGHT: Jaeger-LeCoultre
Master Ultra Thin Jubilee in
ultra-white platinum
nical focus of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s founders, the
watchmakers have made using the perpetual
calendar far simpler than many currently available. Only one corrector regulates all the information. Once set, this Master Grande Tradition
Tourbillon Cylindrique à Quantième Perpétuel
Jubilee will not need any adjustment until 2100.
The perpetual calendar mechanism takes into
account the length of each month and even
considers February 29th every leap year.
Visible from the back, the 22-karat pink gold
rotor reveals a representation of the gold medal brought back by Jaeger-LeCoultre from the
Universal Exhibition of Paris in 1889. As a limited edition Jubilee model, 180 examples will be
made, price upon request.
Ultra-thin
Inspired by a 1907 Jaeger-LeCoultre pocket
watch that remains the thinnest manually
wound mechanical pocket watch in the world,
this “knife-shaped” case model measures a
mere 4.05mm thick. It is the flattest manually
wound mechanical wristwatch in existence.
At the heart of the 39 mm platinum-cased
Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin Jubilee
beats the manual wound mechanical movement Jaeger-LeCoultre 849, itself a thin 1.85 mm
from top to back.
The Ultra-thin watch category is important
at Jaeger-LeCoultre headquarters in Le Sentier.
Thin calibers are in fact at the very origin of the
joining of the two names Jaeger and LeCoultre.
Antoine LeCoultre’s invention of the Millionometer, a device capable of measure components to a micron as they were being made, led
to his development of the very thin calibers this
new model celebrates today.
Watchmaker to the French Navy Edmond
Jaeger set out to create only simple or complicated thin calibers at the turn of the 20th century and challenged the Swiss to make them even
thinner. LeCoultre took this challenge, met
with Jaeger, and by 1907 created the Caliber 145
upon which this new model is based.
Making thin and other inventive calibers for
Cartier and Patek Philippe, among many oth-
Grande Reverso Ultra Thin Duoface
ers, Jaeger and LeCoultre expanded operations
dramatically soon after the Caliber 145. In 1917
they officially merged their watchmaking and
aircraft instrument-making operations, though
the company didn’t create the Jaeger-LeCoultre
brand name until 1937.
As on the tourbillon, you’ll find the “1833”
on the dial of this Master Ultra Thin Jubilee,
but in addition, the watch’s hour markers are
placed within the traditional minute circle
and the grained silver-toned finish just as they
were in many historical pocket watches by
Jaeger-LeCoultre. The company will make 880
editions of the watch, each priced at $17,800.
“Between 1860 and 1900, LeCoultre created more than
350 different calibers, half of them made with one
or more complications.”
The Gyrotourbillon
Gyrotourbillon 3 Jubilee
Joining Jaeger-LeCoultre’s elite Hybris Mechanica family, this Master Grande Tradition
Gyrotourbillon 3 Jubilee (see our August issue
starting on page 94 for more details about this
model) celebrates the rich technical knowhow of the company’s watchmakers at Le
Sentier. The watch is the latest to feature the
Jaeger-LeCoultre gyrotourbillon, a spectacular
three-dimensional, two-axis escapement.
In addition and as noted in our earlier story
on this watch, the Gyrotourbillon 3 Jubilee’s
43.5 mm platinum-cased design, finishing
and case structure owes much specifically
to the legacy of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s 19th century pocket watches. For example, considering
many Jaeger-LeCoultre pocket watches were
operated via single-pusher chronographs, the
chronograph on this extraordinary model is activated via the single pusher at 2 o’clock.
What’s more, the mainplate has been decorated with a finish that requires meticulous
manual hammering, echoing the same finish found on an 1898 pocket watch made by
Jacques-David LeCoultre.
The watch’s functions combine an unusual
instantaneous digital chronograph minutes
indicator, a flying spherical tourbillon escapement with dual-axis, dual-speed rotation, two
barrels and 592 components, making for a piece
worthy of entrance into the Jaeger-LeCoultre
Hybris Mechanica family (see next page for a
look at all the Hybris Mechanica models). The
Master Grande Tradition Gyrotourbillon 3 Jubilee is to be made in a limited edition of seventyfive platinum models.
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Celebrating 180 Years
1833 Founding of the Manufacture by Antoine LeCoultre
1937 Official birth of the
Jaeger-LeCoultre brand
1994 Reverso Duo debuts
1844 Invention of the Millionometer
1938 Compass miniature camera
1847 Invention of the pivoting
winding mechanism
1946 Jaeger-LeCoultre tourbillon
Calibre 170
1997 A new building opens
1851 Gold medal at the World
Fair in London
1946 First automatic
Jaeger-LeCoultre watch
2002 Master Compressor Memovox
debuts
1858 Elie LeCoultre helps his
father Antoine
1950 Birth of the Memovox
2003 Reverso Platinum Number Two
1866 LeCoultre becomes the first Manufacture in the Vallée
de Joux
1953 Jaeger-LeCoultre Calibre 803,
a thin 1.64 mm
1870 First complicated calibers
1874 A new building opens
1880 Jaeger is founded in Paris
1890 The Manufacture produces
156 calibers
1890 The first Grande Complication models
1953 Futurematic debuts
1956 First automatic wristwatch
with an alarm
1958 Geophysic Chronometer
debuts
1959 Memovox Deep Sea. First
diver’s watch equipped with
an alarm
1997 Reverso Duetto debuts
2000 Jaeger-LeCoultre joins the Richemont Group
2003 Atmos Mystérieuse debuts
2004 Gyrotourbillon I debuts
2005 Master Minute Repeater Antoine
LeCoultre
2006 Reverso grande complication
à triptyque
2007 Duomètre debuts
2007 Master Compressor Extreme
Lab debuts
1965 Memovox Polaris debuts
2007 Opening of the Heritage Gallery
1900 Jacques-David LeCoultre is
in charge of production
1967 Participation in the Beta
21 movement
1903 Jacques-David LeCoultre
meets Edmond Jaeger
1976 Jaeger-LeCoultre automatic,
thin, high frequency
Calibre 900
2008 Four pink gold limited series
marking the 175th anniversary
of the Manufacture
1907 Jaeger-LeCoultre Calibre 145, the world’s thinnest movement
1912 Extension of the Manufacture
1925 Invention of the Duoplan watch
1928 Invention of the Atmos clock
1929 Jaeger-LeCoultre Calibre 101,
the world’s thinnest movement
1930 Chronoflight debuts
1931 Eight-day twin-barrel wristwatch
1931 Birth of the Reverso
1932 “Baguette” table clock
1982 Jaeger-LeCoultre Calibre 601,
the world’s thinnest quartz movement
2008 Reverso Gyrotourbillon 2 debuts
2009 New 9,000-square-meter building
2009 Duomètre à Grande Sonnerie debuts
1983 Jaeger-LeCoultre Calibre 889
2010 Master Grande Tradition Grande Complication
1987 Jaeger-LeCoultre mechaquartz
Calibre 630
2011 Reverso Répétition Minutes
à Rideau
1989 Grand Réveil debuts
2012 Duomètre Sphérotourbillon
debuts
1990 Géographique debuts
1991 Reverso 60ème debuts
1992 Master Control 1000 Hours
2013 Jaeger-LeCoultre celebrates
its 180th anniversary