Jaeger-LeCoultre : LeCoultre, a voyage through time

The Valley of Joux is today still for many experts the fatherland of the best clock and watch makers.

The reputation of the LeCoultre family has a very particular place, fruit of its creative genius and its keen work. It is in the village of the Path, in 1833, that starts the chronicle of the Manufacture of show-Jaeger-LeCoultre.

In 1803, the Path accomodates the birth of a child who will ensure his name an international fame. Descendant of Pierre LeCoultre established with the Path in 1559, Antoine LeCoultre is the son of Henri-David, June owner forges dedicated to the production D instruments mechanical. It is there that Antoine receives his training of metallurgist and specializes in the clock making wheels and mechanisms.

1833: With the 30 years age, Antoine leaves the family workshops to found a manufacture of wheels with his Ulysses father, in their native village. He devotes all his energy and his talent of engineer to develop new methods and new processes of production.

A workshop of clock industry which preserves today still all its character of manufacture: the shaping, the completion and the assembly of the clock making components are carried out with the hand in a single complex of specialized workshops. To take time to look after each detail for each one of their creations: thus our clock and watch makers express their passion for the beautiful clock industry and exert their art as virtuosos of the precision.

1844: Antoine LeCoultre invents his Millionomètre: the first instrument able to measure the micron, millionth part of the meter. This metric system will be essential like standard measurement of clock making industry.

1847: LeCoultre & Co create the first movement of pocket equipped with a system of reassembly and setting per hour by the crown. This revolutionary innovation makes forever obsolete the key of winder.

1851: During the first World Fair of London. Antoine LeCoultre gains the gold medal, with a gold stop watch equipped with the new system of reassembly and setting per hour without key.

The business in constant evolution, carries out outlines of watches as well as clock making components of precision. Inexhaustible source of creative ideas, it counts to dejà 100 employees in 1860, and in 1890 it produces 125 different movements.

The wire of Antoine LeCoultre, Elie, Paul and Benjamin, follow the traces of their father. The Manufacture, which creates repetitions, stop watches and days of the month, becomes one of the first suppliers of complicated movements.

When in 1899, Jacques-David, the son of Elie enters the company, it is one of most significant of the Valley of Joux.

1903: LeCoultre & Co produce the watch of pocket more the punt of the world. With a movement of 1 38 mm thickness, its record never yet were beaten. Follow-up of other remarkably flat movements, like the stop watch with 2,8 mm and the repetition minutes to 2,7 mm.

And ties solids business connections with the manufacturer of stop watches Edmond Jaeger, in Paris. It is under the new name Jaeger-LeCoultre that Manufacture extends its fame, while remaining faithful to the pioneer spirit of Antoine LeCoultre.

Resolutely individualistic, it collected hundreds of patents since 1833 and is registered like reference impossible to circumvent in the high level authentic Swiss clock industry.

Other movements of an exceptional thinness succeed to him soon: a stop watch of 2,8 mm and a repetition minutes of 2,7 Misters When the wrist watches détrônent the watches of pocket, LeCoultre sees a beautiful advisability there of conquering new territories.

1925: The tiny wrist watches of the time Art déco are equipped with the rectangular movement Duoplan in two plans. An invention very avant-gardist, by his exceptional precision and its concept of changeable movement in one nothing time.

1928: Engineer J.L. Reutter conceives Atmos. Attractive clock which functions without any reassembly, since it draws all its energy from the most negligible variations in the ambient temperature.

1929: LeCoultre & Co work to reduce the mechanical movement of a watch to a minimum ever reached. Gauge 101; the smallest mechanical movement never carried out.

1931: Transferred, quickly becomes about it one of the most famous watches of the world. This wrist watch with the reversible case turns the back on the shocks to protect the ice from its dial. Authentic witness of the time Art déco, it will perpetuate this style through the generations

Years 1950 and 1960 see the advent of many very innovative wrist watches. The Geomatic stop watch, as well as the Geophysic stop watch, which is equipped with a special antimagnetic protection.

1953: Jaeger-LeCoultre develops Futurematic with indicator of reserve of walk. Provided with remarkable Gauge 497, it is the first automatic watch without crown of winder.

And Memovox of 1956, first automatic wrist watch alarm clock of Jaeger-LeCoultre, makes resound in the spirits the effervescence of the Fifties. It opens also the step with other remarkable inventions such as the Geomatic stop watch and the Geophysic stop watch equipped with a special antimagnetic protection. The years quartz which will follow put almost a final point at the mechanical movement. Except with the Path, where Jaeger-LeCoultre continues to follow its creative star, while applying the most recent technologies to climb new summits.

After the great years of the quartz which missed definitively relegating the mechanical watches in the past all the ideas contained a long time of Manufacture can, since 1980, to give again free course to a fantastic explosion of creativity. From clock making achievements completion is born a series then new.

1982: Jaeger-LeCoultre gains the record of the smallest movement quartz: Gauge 601, measurement 9,7 X 11,7 mm with a thickness of 1,8 Misters a decisive victory for Manufacture, in its eagerness to develop the miniaturization and the precision of the clock making mechanisms.

1987: Manufacture puts at the world a single movement stop watch. The Gauge 630 méca-quartz combines the complexity of the mechanical stop watch and the precision of quartz.

1989: A new creation of Jaeger-LeCoultre wakes up the interest of the whole world: the Large Alarm clock. This perpetual day of the month and moon phases is equipped with a single characteristic: an astonishing bronze bell which comes to make resound a small hammer.

1991: Jaeger-LeCoultre celebrates the 60ème anniversary of Reversa. In homage to this exceptional longevity in the world of the clock industry, Manufacture carries out a series limited to 500 specimens of the legendary reversible watch. Moreover, it creates the road show "Travels in the center of time", and publishes the book "Reverso. The alive legend.

1992: At the Path, the clock and watch makers put to the test the watch most rigorously tested of its time. Master Control 1000 Hours imposes new standards on mechanical reliability.

1993: Reverso Tourbillon with indicator of reserve of walk is born, in series limited to 500 specimens.

1994: The striking sound of small hammers of the special steel stamps resounds in the first of the 500 Reverso Répétition Minutes. The same year, Reverso Duoface reveals its double life generated by only one movement: two dials back with back, with their needles turning with misinterpretation, post the hour here and now... and with the other end of the world.

1996: Jaeger-LeCoultre accumulates the clock making distinctions. Master Geographic is seen decreeing by the Swiss public the title of Watch of the Year. The same year, Reverso gains the Great Price of the Fair of Vicenza, received with great honor by Giorgio Corvo, largest admirateur of Reverso of all times. At the same time, the collectors of beautiful clock industry dispute Retrograde Reverso Chronographe, realized in series limited to 500 specimens.

1997: Dedicated to the elegance of day like night, Reverso Duetto plays the beauty of time in all circumstances: a diurnal face and a night face for it chief-of cover equipped with the smallest mechanical movement with double shunting recto-back.

1998: Invaluable invitation with the voyage, Reverso Géographique was born. With triple indication of time zones, and a counter jour/nuit posting the perpetual race of the sun and stars, this fifth series limited to 500 specimens gains the first prices of innovation in Germany and Italy. And during this time, the impassioned universe on other side of the sport, the art of living the moment present finds from now on its watch: Reverso Gran' Sport. Automatic version or Stop watch with manual reassembly, it represents an exploit of clock making technology, a revelation for all those which live the intensity of the action.

1999: Traditional the Reverso case, hardly thicker than usually, accomodates for the first time a complication: new Gauge 862 composed of 146 parts, mechanical movement with manual reassembly, made of Reverso Memory the guardian of the personal moments.

Its stop watch with meter 60 flyback minutes which turns permanently makes it possible each one to captivate time with its own way. And in homage to the new millenium, Manufacture creates a new version of its great classic Atmos. It makes a success of the exploit to create with its Atmos of the Millenium a quasi perpetual movement indicating the years, the months, the phases of the moon over 1000 years, and of course the hours and the minutes for these 365 243 days.

Jaeger-LeCoultre Manufacture stressed its time with innumerable innovations which cross the times. And at the dawn of the third millenium, it still holds attractive inventions for us. The sixth and last limited series Transferred, and other creations which will fall under the future. For impassioned clock industry, time is with discovered... And Jaeger-LeCoultre will transport you without fault about the fourth millenium.