Generally we
write posts about watches we bought, often just bought. We also write posts
about watches we want to offer ourselves, or dream to offer ourselves.
You can trust
me that the day I put my hands on a Jaeger-Lecoultre Geophysic I'll write
a post about it. But so far and as of today I can just post about a watch I missed.
One of these Jaeger-LeCoultre
Geophysic was posted for sale on Thursday and I contacted the seller as soon as
I saw the ad, but it was already too late. That the watch remained available
for only a handful of hours make me know that I did what I had to do, but makes
me think also that the quest will be long quite probably.
Nicolas posted
already a lot about his Geophysic and its history. I would want to share with
you why I love this watch and why I hope I'll have the luck someday to
enter the owner's club.
After more than
twenty years at dreaming of watches and sometimes also wearing them, I know
that I love simple watches. I appreciate the highly complicated pieces but my
mind knows that they are not for me. Highly complicated watches are here to
satisfy the desires born from the ownership of all the desired simple watches!
So maybe there's hope that I'll desire them someday.
The
Jaeger-LeCoultre Geophysic is a simple watch by essence. It has the minimum to
indicate precisely the time, what I like.
The Geophysic
has a very sober and simple dial aimed at legibility. It is a tool in some way.
The Geophysic was
made to be precise, reliable, useful!
The history of
this watch remains also as understated as the watch design. Of course it was
not an era of psychedelic inventions, but this watch was already a top notch
offering from a leading manufacture of calibres. Contemporary of a Deep Sea
Alarm it was so much more discreet.
You have to go
behind the curtain (the dial) to see the motion at work. The calibre P478/BWSBr
is not decorated with Geneva
stripes, but it shows the best of the mechanical precision at that time. It has
a swan neck regulator, a Breguet spiral curve, a stop second. The base itself
is a very reliable base made by LeCoultre for many calibre references, this one
being certainly the most achieved under the JLC brand, the Vacheron Constantin
Chronometre Royal of that time adding a touch of finish to this calibre.
In fact you can't
imagine the engine while looking at the body. The classical and understated look
could remind us a platinum Richard Lange that I see as the only current
relevant reference for the Geophysic. I'd love to be able to compare both
watches in the long run someday.
Don't
take me wrong I don't want to make you love this watch. We're
already far too many searching for it. As soon as you visit another post,
please forget this one.
I just wanted
to make you share my deception of having missed this watch !
Don't
worry I'm not too disappointed as it is life and as I'll have a new
watch to share with you in September. It is another watch related to
chronometry, but a modern one! I won't say more for now. And who knows,
maybe I'll end up finding my Geophysic?
If you cross a
Geophysic on your way, please talk nicely to her about me!
Cheers
Dje