Jaeger leCoultre
Mastering
the Elements
For many years, Jaeger-LeCoultre has been trailblazing in the timepiece industry, releasing a series of hits covering a wide spectrum of the technical timepiece world. From diving watches to timepieces requiring no lubrication and limited maintenance, Jaeger-LeCoultre has pretty much run the gamut. Following up on last year’s big winner, the Gyrotourbillon II, this year the brand has created another winner in the Master Grande Tradition Tourbillon with perpetual calendar, a first for the brand, and a new Master Grande Minute Repeater with an amazing twoweek power reserve. Both pieces feature something radically new, a silicon escapement plated with a diamond coating that provides vastly better protection against fissures in the silicon and ensures reliability of the timekeeping to an even greater degree than ever before. As such, the efficiency of the movement immediately increases by 15% in terms of reducing wear and tear on the movement, thus providing a level of durability that is rarely found.
The Master Grande Tradition Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar is indeed a site to behold. Consisting of a gaudy 401 parts, the Calibre 987 movement supports a two-level display with the top level showing the time and the bottom level containing the tourbillon spinning effortlessly in its cage. Jaeger-LeCoultre has also succeeded in reducing the weight of the tourbillon by housing it in a grade 5 titanium carriage allowing the tourbillon to weigh in at a feather-light 0.28 grams. The movement accounts for leap years in its perpetual calendar making this a timepiece truly worthy for the ages.
The Master Grande Minute Repeater, fitted with the Calibre 947R movement, not only provides a superior power reserve but is also a first in being fitted with a regulatortype display. Just as with the Calibre 947, introduced in 2005, the minute repeater emits a crystal-clear sound that is created by gongs with tapered ends and a square appearance.
The regulator concept has its origins in reference clocks that were once used to check reliability of time in other clocks. The basis of the regulator is that the reading of hours and minutes are done from different axes, thus making for optimal readability. In this piece from Jaeger-LeCoultre, the hour is read from a sub-dial at 12 o’clock while the minutes glide around the larger dial. The power reserve can be found between 7 and 8 o’clock while the two minute repeater gongs are displayed at 4 o’clock. Designed with a 44mm case in yellow gold and limited to 100 pieces, this is a must-have for any technical enthusiast.
The uniqueness of Jaeger-LeCoultre often lies in the fact that their technical expertise stands out even for sport and diving atches. Since the 1960’s, the brand has excelled in creating robust watches to withstand the greatest depths, even being tested down to 1088 metres in Indonesia in recent years.
The brand has produced a number of new Navy SEAL watches for the true diving enthusiast in the renowned Master Compressor line. Namely, this year comes the introduction of the Master Compressor Diving Chronograph with alarm, Chronograph GMT and Pro Geographic.
The alarm version is an impressive piece modeled technically after the Memovox Deep Sea. This piece uses a Calibre 956 in-house movement housed in a 44mm grade 5 titanium case. To set the alarm, simply rotate the revolving and luminescent triangle on the ceramic finished bezel to the desired position. It is also water-tight to 300 metres. While it looks simple, it’s for that reason that this is such an indispensable piece for the sports enthusiast.
The chronograph GMT version takes that simplicity a step further in either a pink gold case (watertight to 300 metres) or a titanium version (watertight to 1000 metres). Using the concept of hometime/traveltime employed by other Jaeger-LeCoultre GMT watches, the second time zone can be read through a skeletonized hand and a day/ night aperture at 12 o’clock for easy use. The Calibre 757 self-winding movement contains a 65-hour power reserve, more than enough for anything you might underground water, on land or crossing time zones. And at 46.3mm and with its renowned compressor fins on the push pieces, this is a timepiece that makes a real splash.
Finally, there is the Pro Geographic version which employs the mechanical depth gauge similar to the Master Compressor Diving Pro timepiece that was released in 2007. Built in a limited edition of 300 pieces in pink gold with a ceramic bezel, the mechanical gauge uses the amount of pressure exerted on its PVD-plated head to provide a diver with a precise depth reading down to 40 metres. But more than previous pieces, this particular watch allows you to read the time anywhere in the world by positioning the city representing the time zone in the dial at 6 o’clock, triggering a 24-hour dial at 9 o’clock to display the time in the second city. In a way, this particular timepiece represents the very best of the Geographic and the diving watch ranges of Jaeger-LeCoultre.
