Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Eight Days: Horology For the Holidays
- Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Master Eight Days packs high horology for the Holidays.
- One day of gifts or eight? You’re covered either way with this award-winner.
- Master Eight Days packs a movement designed for the $92K Reverso 70eme.
- A display caseback features outstanding heritage design and finishing.
- Available from watchuwant.com with all boxes and papers for $10,995.
- This represents a 27% discount from the MSRP of $15,000.
The Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Eight Days is the ultimate gift for the 2014 holiday season.
And if the watch enthusiast in your life plans to celebrate, as Adam Sandler memorably crooned, “Eight crazy nights,” the Master Eight Days might be the ultimate themed luxury watch gift idea. With its in-house Caliber 877 eight-day movement, night/day indicator, power reserve, grand date, and display caseback, this Master Eight Days packs enough toys to make even Santa Claus jealous.
Eight day movements are rarities in the world of high horology.
While these long-legged movements tend to be associated with Officine Panerai, Jaeger-LeCoultre of Le Sentier beat the Swiss-Italian brand to the otto giorni punch by at least three decades. And JLC drew directly on that heritage of innovation when it launched the Master Eight Days as a 200-unit special edition in 2003.
The watch world took notice of that initial run of platinum Master Eight Days, and horology’s version of the Academy Awards, Le Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, tapped the new Jaeger-LeCoultre for the 2003 Special Jury Prize (F.P. Journe’s formidable Octa Lune was the bridesmaid). And in true Hollywood fashion, a sequel was inevitable.
Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Master Eight Days in stainless steel, shown here, brought the technology and stunning style of the Eight Days within reach of mainstream watch enthusiasts.
With the exception of the case material and individual numbering, the stainless steel Master Eight Days is identical to its award-winning precious metal predecessor. Critically, the Cal. 877 of the Grand Prix winner is retained in full glory.
And this movement is glorious.
Jaeger-LeCoultre was among the first watchmakers to recognize that mechanical watches had become luxury items, and new movements deserved as much aesthetic consideration as the case and dial. With the emergence of mechanical movements as the cornerstone of the luxury watch market, it was essential to style a movement rather than merely finish it. Finishing a movement with polish and texture was old-school and expected, but designing a movement to reference history and look sharp was a modern innovation.
Starting with the Reverso 60eme of 1991, JLC began to acknowledge the emerging role of display casebacks in the luxury watch industry.
Drawing on its heritage of its historic movements and considerable in-house competence in watchmaking, Jaeger-LeCoultre designed the movement of the Master Eight Days to recall the famed eight-day pocket watch calibers produced by then-LeCoultre from 1919-1931.
At first glance, the sprawling expanse of the Cal. 877’s three-quarter bridge evokes the construction of an interwar pocket watch, and the vast real estate is landscaped with a unique rendition of côtes de soleil that radiates outward from its origin at the balance wheel. Subtle brushed texture between the crests of the “Geneva Wave” adds an extra dimension and animates the light.
Heat-blued screws are fired in a kiln to oxidize them to a deep cobalt luster. Their color provides a yang to the yin of the violet pivot jewels.
At the balance cock – itself a retro touch – a highly polished swan’s neck regulator holds the index staff secure from shocks. The graceful sweep of the swan’s neck draws the observer’s eye to the oscillating balance that anchors the entire caseback composition. The movement is the star of the Master Eight Days, and Jaeger-LeCoultre spares nothing to craft a classic on the Cal. 877’s radiant canvas.
While the caseback is a show-stopper, the Master Eight Days is a winning design effort from any angle.
Its silvered dial is animated by a subtle sunburst that flows from beneath the half-frosted dauphine hands at center. JLC’s dial is a study in calculated asymmetry done right. Four supporting complications including a small seconds subdial, a night/day indicator, an eight day power reserve gauge, and a grand date on the dial’s periphery.
These complications betray the high horology origins of the Cal. 877. Originally designed for the seventieth anniversary of the iconic Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso, this eight-day movement began life in that very watch, the legendary Reverso Septantieme of 2002. That masterpiece retailed a staggering $94,000 in 2002, and this Master Eight Days is blessed with a mechanical inheritance that preserves virtually all of the Septantieme’s phenomenal feature set.
Squint at the dial of the Master Eight Days, mentally draw a tall rectangle around the complications, and a ghostly vision of the Septantieme appears. Short of the 18-karat white gold plates and bridges, the Cal. 877 and the 70eme’s Cal. 879 are the same movement in two differently shaped cases. It’s like a getting Ferrari engine for Mustang money.
On the wrist, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Eight Days is far less polarizing than the love/hate form of the hulking Reverso Septantieme. While Reversos and their odd shapes tend to be go/no-go fits for specific wrist sizes and profiles, the 41.5mm Master Eight Days sits thin, flat, and unobtrusive against the skin. Its lugs are short, curved, and their spring pin drillings lie relatively close to the skin for outstanding strap purchase.
The brown alligator strap is bound by one of JLC’s superb double-deployant clasps. The early platinum and rose gold versions of the Master Eight Days featured the occasionally awkward single-arc deployant that JLC employed during the 1990s, but the Master Eight Days available from watchuant.com is equipped with the superior four-hinge clasp that bowed around 2005.
The updated deployant removes the discomfort, strained closure, and sizing complications that made the earlier design a challenge to use when adjusted for smaller wrists.
Available from watchuwant.com with full factory boxes, papers, accessories, and documents of provenance, this Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Eight Days presents an ideal opportunity to bring “like-new” high horology home for the holidays.
Whether planning one major holiday splash or eight nights of cheer, the ultimate holiday gift idea for 2014 is one that keeps on giving after the gifting is done. Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Master Eight Days packs the pedigree, substance, and charm to win any enthusiast’s heart this holiday season and beyond.
