A Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Moon Triple Calendar, In Pink Gold

Jaeger-LeCoultre is synonymous with the Reverso and with good reason, but while the Reverso’s a remarkable watch with a unique identity, it’s the tip of the iceberg when it comes to JLC’s historic production. JLC over the course of its history, since it was founded in 1833, has produced hundreds upon hundreds of movements and has also been one of the most important suppliers of both simple and complicated watches to the rest of Switzerland’s fine watchmaking industry. Despite the fact that JLC’s Reverso first debuted in the 1930s, the post World War II period was one in which it excelled in the production of classic daily driver dress watches, and in 1992, Jaeger-LeCoultre introduced a new collection of watches designed to showcase that period and those styles, along with a new 1000 hour quality control certification. The collection was launched as the Master Control collection, and the modern Master Control collection is where you’ll find the same basic inspiration, powered by JLC’s own range of in-house movements. The Master Calendar is Jaeger-LeCoultre’s take on the classic complete calendar wristwatch.

The Master Calendar with moonphase has gone through several different incarnations since the Master Control collection was launched in 1992, and this model was made from roughly the late 1990s up to about 2005. Modern versions of the Master Calendar are larger than this one’s 37mm diameter and also feature a larger diameter moonphase opening, which cuts off the date in the lower quadrant of the dial. The new model gets around this through the use of a jumping date hand, which skips from the 15th to the 16th by jumping over the moonphase disk. Here, however, we have an earlier, more classical execution in which the dates are uniformly spaced around the dial, with the model dating from the early 2000s.

The phase of the Moon is shown inside an aperture that also shows the age of the Moon across the 29 1/2 day lunar month, with a straightforward execution of the moonphase disk which like the rest of the watch is firmly grounded in the design language for triple and complete calendars from the postwar era. The date hand is tipped with a red crescent, which ties it visually into the moonphase complication, and which stands out against the black dial in stark contrast – almost like a crescent blood moon (which, if you want to be picky, is actually an astronomical impossibility, as blood moons only occur during full moons).

The date hand’s arbor is below the level of the hour and minute hands, and if you look closely, you can see that there’s a definite but unobtrusive step in the hand, which raises the level of the red crescent up above the dial so that it can clear the triangular hour markers. The newer Master Calendar watches dispense with the red crescent and instead, used a miniature version, in red, of the JLC logo, so the red crescent’s a very charming, and out of production, period detail.

Inside, we have the JLC automatic caliber 891/2-448, with “Master Control 1000 hours” proudly stamped on the rotor. The 891/2-448 is JLC’s caliber 889, which was launched as an extra thin automatic movement in 1983, with the addition of a triple calendar and moonphase, and it shares the same basic performance characteristics as the base caliber, running at 28,800 vph in 36 jewels and offering a 38 hour power reserve. The Master Control 1000 Hour testing regimen is a 41 day test of the complete cased watch, and it includes verifications of water resistance, power reserve, and chronometry, with the latter requiring a mean daily variation in rate of +6/-1 seconds per day (for comparison, the COSC chronometer standard is +6/-4 seconds per day). The movement is designed with sturdiness and reliability, as well as consistency in performance, as its engineering goals, and is adjusted in six positions, vs. five for the current COSC standard.

This is I think, especially at this size and with the general execution details you see here, about as good as a complete calendar watch gets. While many of the modern Master and Master Control watches are less formal than this piece, the black dial (a relative rarity for Master Control calendar watches) size, and the use of details like the crescent tipped date hand, make it an exceptionally dignified example of the dress watch.

For pricing and availability, please contact The 1916 Company.