JAEGER LECOULTRE MASTER CONTROL "1000 HOURS" CHRONOGRAPH (MODEL REF: 145.8.31)
CASE & BRACELET / STRAP:
This watch has a stainless steel case which measures 34mm wide x 40mm long x 10mm thick. It has a domed sapphire crystal, signed crown, polished steel chrono pushers & screwed on case back with 18ct gold Mater Control 1000 Hours medal.
This watch comes on its original stainless steel Jaeger LeCoultre brick link bracelet with butterfly deployment buckle. This watch was last worn by a female with a wrist of 6.5" inches in diameter & we do not have any spare links. Links will be available through any autherised JL sales outlet. This watch also comes with a genuine JL black crocodile skin strap with S/S JL pin buckle. The strap has been used, but it remains in good order.
Both case & bracelet have been fully stripped, cleaned & polished, subsequently this watch is crisp, clean & ready to wear. After fitting a new battery, the case has been sealed & pressure tested, so the winning bidder can rest assured that their watch meets the specified water resistance rating.
DIAL & HANDS:
Sunburst silver metal dial with applied gold arrow head hour markers, it has a black tackymetric readout & chapter ring on the dial perimeter. It also has a date aperture at 4.30, three subsidiary dials for recording the chronograph & it is clearly signed Jaeger LeCoultre Swiss Made.
Gold Alpha style hans, inset with lume & blued steel hands for recording the chronograph & continuous seconds.
MOVEMENT:
This watch uses the legendary Jaeger LeCoultre calibre 631 Mecaquartz chronograph movement, which has often been described as the best quartz movement ever made. It is basically a mechanical chronograph module, powered by piezzo quartz stepping motors. With 25 jewels & 233 individual parts, you can see that this is no ordinary quartz watch. It has 2x piezzo quartz stepping motors, one to power the main hands (with a frequency of 1Hz), & a second to power the chronograph which has a higher frequency (4Hz), to allow the timing of 1/20th of a second. This movement has a serial number 2450743.
The movement was last serviced in Feb 2015 & it has recently been fitted with a new battery, subsequently it is running strong, keeping good time & the chronograph module functioning perfectly.
BOX:
This watch comes housed in its original Jaeger LeCoultre blue leather box set, which remains in excellent order. The paperwork has been lost or disgarded.
SUMMARY:
This is a truly stunning example of a modern Jaeger LeCoultre dress chronograph & it remains in a excellent all round condition. Every Master Control watch has undergone Jaeger LeCoultre`s 1000 Hour testing procedure, ensuring that each of these watches are mechanically perfect. The Maxell battery shown in the pics has been changed for a brand new Renata Swiss battery, the case has been sealed & pressure tested, so the winning bidder can rest assured that their watch meets the specified water resistance rating.
JAEGER LeCOULTRE WATCH COMPANY HISTORY:
The year was 1833 when thirty-year-old Antoine LeCoultre, son of Vallee de Joux watchmaker Jacques LeCoultre, opened a small factory in the town of Le Sentier. Amazingly enough, the current Jaeger-LeCoultre factory is only a few feet away from the site of the original factory. In any event, LeCoultre soon proved himself to be a gifted watchmaker, but an even more brilliant inventor.
In 1844 LeCoultre revolutionized the watch industry with the invention of the millionometer, an instrument with which measurements of up to one thousandths of a millimeter could be made accurately. As a result, precisely finished components could be manufactured, resulting in greatly improved accuracy in timekeeping. Likewise, the metric system became the universal measuring standard in watchmaking, while other systems were rendered obsolete.
LeCoultre's motto - "we must base our experience on science" - was particularly true when it came to manufacturing precision movements & tools. The artistry came later at the hands of a master watchmaker, who assembled, decorated & regulated the movements. In short order, LeCoultre became the leading supplier of movements, parts & tools to the watchmaking industry in Switzerland.
LeCoultre movements were so highly regarded, in fact, that until 1910, the company provided Patek Philippe with most of its raw movements. It was only in later years that Patek Philippe built its own movements from scratch. In the meantime, other companies had come to rely exclusively on LeCoultre's products, from which they would create finished watches. LeCoultre's success was so great that between 1900 & 1919, 40,000 raw movements were produced. Movements sold for between 100 & 400 francs each, not an inconsiderable sum of money back then.
In 1925, the grandson of the firm's founder, David LeCoultre, merged his company with that of Edmond Jaeger, the exclusive supplier of watch movements to Cartier. This is when the modern company known as Jaeger-LeCoultre first came into existence. Incredibly enough, up to this point, LeCoultre had not sold any watches under its own name. The merger, however, prompted further technical innovations, not the least of which was a case made from stainless steel, as well as the creation of the smallest mechanical movement in the world, which weighed less than one gram.
The year 1931 saw the introduction of the Reverso, a wristwatch that could be turned 180 degrees within the case, thereby protecting the crystal & dial. It was a fantastic creation & one that was enthusiastically received by the public. Unfortunately, the worldwide economic crisis & World War II conspired to prevent the Reverso from achieving its full potential. Changing fashions coupled with the advent of waterproof watches might have forever doomed the watch to obscurity, had it not been for an Italian dealer who visited the factory in the 1960's & noticed a number of unused Reverso cases sitting in a watchmakers' drawer. The Italian dealer bought the cases & fitted them with movements. The finished watches were an instant sell-out & the rest is history. Today, the Reverso is by far Jaeger-LeCoultre's most popular model.
Another interesting story concerns David LeCoultre's bid for Patek Philippe. In 1932, Patek Philippe was in major financial straits & looking for a white knight. LeCoultre, whose company manufactured movements for Patek, wanted to acquire a majority interest. He came close to finalizing a deal, but the Stern brothers, whose company supplied the dials used in Patek Philippe watches, ultimately acquired the company. Although Patek Philippe has certainly prospered under the Stern family's management, it is nonetheless interesting to contemplate what effect a Patek Philippe / Jaeger-LeCoultre merger may have had on the Swiss watch industry.
Needless to say, the company has continued to thrive, introducing such innovations as the Memovox, Futurematic, Atmos Clock (which in and of itself could be the subject of an article) & strikingly original movements, such as the world's thinnest automatic with a thickness of just 2.35 mm, just to name a few. The thin automatic movement in particular was an incredible success, as both Vacheron Constantin & Audemars Piguet featured it in wristwatches advertised as being the world's slimmest self-winding timepieces. During the 1970's & early 1980's, Jaeger-LeCoultre produced a 36 jewel, self-winding calibre for Patek Philippe. Once again, both companies had come full circle.
On a final note, it is worth noting that Jaeger-LeCoultre is one of the few companies in Switzerland that still produces its own movements, cases, dials, hands & bracelets. Virtually every single component in a Jaeger-LeCoultre watch is hand-finished, produced in-house & this in turn results in strict quality control. As a result, Jaeger-LeCoultre watches are recognized as being among the very finest hand-crafted watches available & evidence of this can be seen in the fact that Jaeger-LeCoultre regularly produces such masterpieces as the Reverso Tourbillon & Reverso Minute Repeater. There is also the Master Control series of watches, which boast 1,000 hours of testing & assembly at the patient hands of a master watchmaker.
