Jaeger-LeCoultre
Encyclopedia
Watch
A watch is a small timepiece, typically worn either on the wrist or attached on a chain and carried in a pocket, with wristwatches being the most common type of watch used today. They evolved in the 17th century from spring powered clocks, which appeared in the 15th century. The first watches were...
and clock
Clock
A clock is an instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". A silent instrument missing such a mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece...
manufacturer based in Le Sentier
Le Sentier
Le Sentier is a village in the Vallée de Joux in the Canton of Vaud, Switzerland. Part of the municipality Le Chenit, the village has 3,000 inhabitants....
, Vaud
Vaud
Vaud is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and is located in Romandy, the French-speaking southwestern part of the country. The capital is Lausanne. The name of the Canton in Switzerland's other languages are Vaud in Italian , Waadt in German , and Vad in Romansh.-History:Along the lakes,...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. In addition, Jaeger-LeCoultre also has a long tradition of supplying movements and parts to other prestigious watch companies in Switzerland. Since 1996, Jaeger-LeCoultre has been a fully owned subsidiary of the Swiss luxury group Richemont
Richemont
Compagnie Financière Richemont S.A. is a Swiss luxury goods holding company founded in 1988 by the South African businessman Johann Rupert. Richemont categorizes its businesses into four areas: jewellery, watch making, writing instruments and other, which encompasses clothing and firearms. The...
. Their watches compete with other high-end brands such as Patek Philippe & Co
Patek Philippe & Co.
Patek Philippe & Co. is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer located in Geneva and the Vallée de Joux.-History:Polish watchmaker Antoni Patek started making pocket watches in 1839 in Geneva, along with his fellow Polish migrant Franciszek Czapek. They separated in 1844, and in 1845 Patek joined with...
, Vacheron Constantin
Vacheron Constantin
Vacheron Constantin is a Swiss manufacture of prestige watches and a brand of the Richemont group. Considered by watch enthusiasts to be one of the finest traditional watch makers in the world along with Patek Philippe & Co., Jaeger-LeCoultre and Audemars Piguet.It employs around 400 people...
, and Audemars Piguet
Audemars Piguet
Audemars Piguet is a manufacturer of prestige Swiss watches which compete with Patek Philippe, Jaeger-LeCoultre and Vacheron Constantin.-Foundation:...
.
Founding
In 1833, Antoine LeCoultre (1803–81) founded a small workshopWorkshop
A workshop is a room or building which provides both the area and tools that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods...
in Le Sentier, Switzerland, for the manufacture of high-quality timepieces. In 1844, he measured the micrometre
Micrometre
A micrometer , is by definition 1×10-6 of a meter .In plain English, it means one-millionth of a meter . Its unit symbol in the International System of Units is μm...
(μm) for the first time and created the world's most precise measuring instrument, the millionometer, capable of measuring to thousandths of a millimetre
Millimetre
The millimetre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousandth of a metre, which is the SI base unit of length....
. In 1847, LeCoultre developed a system that eliminated the need for keys to rewind and set watches, using a push-piece that activated a lever to change from one function to another. In 1851, he was awarded a gold medal for his work on timepiece precision
Accuracy and precision
In the fields of science, engineering, industry and statistics, the accuracy of a measurement system is the degree of closeness of measurements of a quantity to that quantity's actual value. The precision of a measurement system, also called reproducibility or repeatability, is the degree to which...
and mechanization
Mechanization
Mechanization or mechanisation is providing human operators with machinery that assists them with the muscular requirements of work or displaces muscular work. In some fields, mechanization includes the use of hand tools...
at the first Universal Exhibition in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
LeCoultre Manufacture
Antoine's son, Elie LeCoultre, desired to control all stages of timepiece production, so in 1866 he transformed his workshop into a manufactureManufacture d'horlogerie
Manufacture d'horlogerie is a French horological term of art that is also used in English. In horology, the term is usually encountered in its abbreviated form manufacture. This term of art is used when describing either a wrist watch movement/watchworks fabricator or its products...
, allowing his employees to pool their expertise under one roof. In 1870, LeCoultre began using mechanized processes to manufacture complicated timepiece movements
Movement (clockwork)
In horology, a movement is the internal mechanism of a clock or watch, as opposed to the case, which encloses and protects the movement, and the face which displays the time. The term originated with mechanical timepieces, whose movements are made of many moving parts...
. Within 30 years, LeCoultre had created more than 350 different timepiece calibers
Caliber (horology)
Caliber: at the beginning the denomination indicated only the size of a watch movement.Today, caliber designs a precise movement type, indicating the size, the style , followed by the mark of the Ebauches manufacturer Caliber: at the beginning the denomination indicated only the size of a watch...
, of which 128 were equipped with chronograph
Chronograph
A chronograph is a timepiece or watch with both timekeeping and stopwatch functions as well as other functions. Pocket watch chronographs were produced as early as the 18th century but did not become popular until the 1820s...
functions and 99 with repeater mechanisms. From 1902 and for the next 30 years, LeCoultre produced most of the movement blanks for Patek Philippe of Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
.
Jaeger-LeCoultre
In 1903, Parisian Edmond Jaeger challenged Jacques-David LeCoultre, grandson of Antoine, to manufacture ultra-thin calibers of his design. Out of their relationship emerged a collection of ultra-thin pocket watchPocket watch
A pocket watch is a watch that is made to be carried in a pocket, as opposed to a wristwatch, which is strapped to the wrist. They were the most common type of watch from their development in the 16th century until wristwatches became popular after World War I during which a transitional design,...
es, followed by others that eventually, in 1937, officially culminated in the Jaeger-LeCoultre brand. In 1907, French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
jeweler Cartier
Cartier SA
Cartier S.A., commonly known as Cartier , is a French luxury jeweler and watch manufacturer. The corporation carries the name of the Cartier family of jewellers whose control ended in 1964 and who were known for numerous pieces including the "Bestiary" , the diamond necklace created for Bhupinder...
, a client of Jaeger's, signed a contract with the Parisian watchmaker under which all Jaeger's movement designs for a period of 15 years would be exclusive to Cartier. The movements were produced by LeCoultre. Also in 1907, the LeCoultre Caliber 145 set the record for the thinnest movement at 1.38 mm. JLC began manufacturing the Atmos clock
Atmos clock
Atmos is the brand name of a mechanical clock manufactured by Jaeger-LeCoultre in Switzerland which does not need to be wound manually. It gets the energy it needs to run from temperature and atmospheric pressure changes in the environment, and can run for years without human intervention.Its...
in 1936 after purchasing the patent from Jean-Leon Reutter, who invented it in 1928. The company was officially renamed Jaeger-LeCoultre in 1937. In 1941, Jaeger-LeCoultre earned the highest distinction from the Neuchâtel Observatory
Neuchâtel Observatory
The Observatoire Cantonal de Neuchâtel is an astronomical observatory funded by the Public Economy Department of the Neuchâtel State . It is located in Neuchâtel and was founded in 1858. Besides astronomical observations, the Neuchâtel observatory also works with atomic clocks...
for its tourbillon
Tourbillon
In horology, a tourbillon is an addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement. Developed around 1795 by the French-Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet from an earlier idea by the English chronometer maker John Arnold a tourbillon aims to counter the effects of gravity by mounting the...
Caliber 170. In 1982, the Jaeger-LeCoultre museum was established in Le Sentier. In 2009, JLC produced the world's most complicated wristwatch, the Hybris Mechanica à Grande Sonnerie with 26 complications.
Other Products
LeCoultre manufactured a compact camera named Compass. It was a very advanced instrument at the time of manufacture, with many features. Jaeger-LeCoultre has produced measuring instruments, such as speedometerSpeedometer
A speedometer is a gauge that measures and displays the instantaneous speed of a land vehicle. Now universally fitted to motor vehicles, they started to be available as options in the 1900s, and as standard equipment from about 1910 onwards. Speedometers for other vehicles have specific names...
s and fuel meters, under the Jaeger brand. The Jaeger instruments for automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
s were mostly used by the French automobile makers Citroën
Citroën
Citroën is a major French automobile manufacturer, part of the PSA Peugeot Citroën group.Founded in 1919 by French industrialist André-Gustave Citroën , Citroën was the first mass-production car company outside the USA and pioneered the modern concept of creating a sales and services network that...
, Peugeot
Peugeot
Peugeot is a major French car brand, part of PSA Peugeot Citroën, the second largest carmaker based in Europe.The family business that precedes the current Peugeot company was founded in 1810, and manufactured coffee mills and bicycles. On 20 November 1858, Emile Peugeot applied for the lion...
and Renault
Renault
Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...
. Jaeger speedometers and tachometer
Tachometer
A tachometer is an instrument measuring the rotation speed of a shaft or disk, as in a motor or other machine. The device usually displays the revolutions per minute on a calibrated analogue dial, but digital displays are increasingly common...
s were also supplied to British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
sports cars manufacturers such as Triumph
Triumph Motor Company
The Triumph Motor Company was a British car and motor manufacturing company. The Triumph marque is owned currently by BMW. The marque had its origins in 1885 when Siegfried Bettmann of Nuremberg initiated S. Bettmann & Co and started importing bicycles from Europe and selling them with his own...
. Many Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
cars such as Ferrari
Ferrari
Ferrari S.p.A. is an Italian sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, as Scuderia Ferrari, the company sponsored drivers and manufactured race cars before moving into production of street-legal vehicles as Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947...
have used Jaeger automobile instrumentation.
LeCoultre in North America
Watches sold in North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
were sold under the LeCoultre name from 1932 to approximately 1985. After that the Jaeger-LeCoultre name was adopted uniformly worldwide. According to factory records, the last movement to be used in an American LeCoultre watch shipped out of Le Sentier in 1976.
There is substantial confusion over the use of LeCoultre name for the North American market. Some collectors and misinformed dealers make the erroneous claim that the American LeCoultre has nothing to do with Jaeger-LeCoultre Switzerland. The confusion stems from the fact that, in the 1950s, the North American distributor of LeCoultre watches was the Longines-Wittnauer Group
Longines
Longines is a Swiss luxury watchmaker based in Saint-Imier, Switzerland. The company was originally founded by Auguste Agassiz in 1832 and it currently holds the oldest registered logo for a watch company . Longines is currently owned by the Swatch Group.Longines is known for its 'Aviators' watches...
, which was also responsible for the distribution of Vacheron Constantin
Vacheron Constantin
Vacheron Constantin is a Swiss manufacture of prestige watches and a brand of the Richemont group. Considered by watch enthusiasts to be one of the finest traditional watch makers in the world along with Patek Philippe & Co., Jaeger-LeCoultre and Audemars Piguet.It employs around 400 people...
timepieces. Collectors have confused this distribution channel with the manufacture of the watches. Outside the actual distribution channel, the LeCoultre product, at the manufacturing level, had nothing to do with either Longines, Wittnauer or Vacheron Constantin — with one exception of the "Galaxy", an upmarket mysterious dial diamond watch. According to Zaf Basha, p. 192, Galaxy is a collaboration between Vacheron & Constantin and LeCoultre for the American market. It has got LeCoultre in the front and Vacheron & Constantin — LeCoultre stamped on the case. In addition, the LeCoultre trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
was owned by the Société Anonyme de la Fabrique D'Horlogerie LeCoultre & Cie, Le Sentier. The LeCoultre trademark expired and was replaced by the Jaeger-LeCoultre trademark in 1985.
The Atmos Clock
Atmos is the brand name of a mechanical clock manufactured by Jaeger-LeCoultre, which does not need to be wound. It derives energy from small temperatureTemperature
Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...
changes and atmospheric pressure
Atmospheric pressure
Atmospheric pressure is the force per unit area exerted into a surface by the weight of air above that surface in the atmosphere of Earth . In most circumstances atmospheric pressure is closely approximated by the hydrostatic pressure caused by the weight of air above the measurement point...
changes in the environment, and can run for years without human intervention.
The first Atmos clock was designed by Jean-Léon Reutter, an engineer in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, in 1928. This noncommercial prototype
Prototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
, which predated the Atmos name but is now known unofficially as Atmos 0, was driven by a mercury-in-glass
Mercury-in-glass thermometer
A mercury-in-glass thermometer, also known as a mercury thermometer, was invented by German physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit in 1724 and is a thermometer consisting of mercury in a glass tube. Calibrated marks on the tube allow the temperature to be read by the length of the mercury within the...
expansion device. The mechanism operated on temperature changes alone. A one degree change in air temperature will wind an Atmos Clock for two days.
In 1929, Compagnie Générale de Radio (CGR) in France began manufacturing the first commercial model, Atmos 1, which used a mercury and ammonia
Ammonia
Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . It is a colourless gas with a characteristic pungent odour. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to food and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or...
bellows
Bellows
A bellows is a device for delivering pressurized air in a controlled quantity to a controlled location.Basically, a bellows is a deformable container which has an outlet nozzle. When the volume of the bellows is decreased, the air escapes through the outlet...
power source. In 1935, Jaeger-LeCoultre took over production of Atmos 1 while it developed a second design which used the present ethyl chloride power source. This model, later named the Atmos 2, was announced in 1936, but problems delayed full production until 1939. Subsequent models were based on this design. To date, over 500,000 Atmos clocks have been produced.
Initially the Atmos clock was produced in a variety of designs, but in 1937 a single design was chosen. The current design is an open-dial model made of brass, set on a brass base and covered by a detachable case consisting of four crystal sides and a crystal top set in a brass framework. As of 1954, neither the mechanism nor the design had been patented.