Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Master Control Alarm Ref. 144.8.94, ca. 2002

Identity

Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Réveil, Master Control, 18-carat rose gold, Ref. 141.2.97, ca. 1994. Automatic movement, in-house calibre 918, mechanical hammer alarm. 18-carat rose gold case, 39 mm in diameter, screwed back struck with the gilt Master Control 1000 Hours medallion and numbered, two signed crowns at 2 and 4 o'clock. Silvered dial, sunburst centre disc and flat outer chapter, applied gold arrowhead markers, applied gold Arabic numerals at 12, 6 and 9 o'clock, gold dots on the minute track, framed date aperture at 3 o'clock, alarm hand with a triangular tip, gold dauphine hands, blued seconds hand. Sapphire crystal. Brown leather strap, original Jaeger-LeCoultre gold folding clasp.

Horological context

Founded in 1833 in Le Sentier, in the Vallée de Joux, by Antoine LeCoultre, the manufacture joined forces with the Parisian watchmaker Edmond Jaeger and took the name Jaeger-LeCoultre in 1937. 1951 brought the Memovox — from memoria and vox, the voice of memory — the maison's first alarm wristwatch, manually wound; the automatic followed in 1956 with the 815 calibre, the world's first automatic alarm wristwatch, from which came the Deep Sea Alarm of 1959 and the Polaris of 1965. In 1992 the maison launched the Master Control line and the control that gives it its name: a thousand hours of continuous testing, six weeks, on the finished and cased watch, in six positions, with power-reserve cycles, temperature and pressure variation, magnetic fields and shock. Where chronometer certification runs fifteen days on the movement alone, the thousand hours bear on the watch as it will be worn. The Memovox owes its reputation to the first automatic alarm wristwatch, in 1956; this one descends from it directly — automatic, thirty-nine millimetres, with the date.

Character

Two crowns at two and four o'clock, and a central hand with a triangular tip brought round to the hour of the alarm: the watch is set the way an appointment is made. The dial says what it is in French — REVEIL beneath the signature, AUTOMATIQUE above the six — and divides into two zones, a sunburst centre disc and a flat outer chapter carrying the minute track. Everything on it is gold, from the markers to the hands to the buckle; only the seconds hand, blued, cuts against the whole.

Serviced. Very good condition. Delivered with its original box and papers, and the Contre-Temps 24-month warranty certificate.