Jaeger-LeCoultre

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