The eventful history of the LeCoultre company has its origins in 1833. It was in that year that the imaginative engineer and gifted craftsman, Charles-Antoine LeCoultre, started producing toothed wheels for watches at the southwest corner of the picturesque Joux lake. The 30-year-old LeCoultre had set his heart on the development of increasingly precise tools and instruments, and it was thus that he soon introduced his own wheel-cutting machines. In 1844 he became noted for the "Millionometer".

This ingenious instrument enabled watchmakers for the first time to measure to a precision of a thousandth of a millimeter. It made an important contribution to the further development of precision horology, for in the matter of counting seconds, thousandths become decisive.

In 1851 the first universal exhibition opened its doors in London. It was there that Antoine LeCoultre was able to show his production, which comprised pocket chronometers, wheels and pinions, movement-blanks and watchmakers' tools. The jury was impressed enough by his horological precision and dedication to award him a coveted gold medal.

LeCoultre's creative output, which went for immediate delivery to Switzerland's major watch producers, saw him evolve into by far the largest employer in a structurally undeveloped region. When the wheels stopped turning at LeCoultre, things also came to a halt in the Fabrique de Geneve 60 kilometers away. And those who failed to stock up in good time would have to go without in winter, for ice and snow blocked the passes into the valley.

In 1877, the founder's sons started the con-struction and manufacture of complicated mechanisms for watches. It would be no exaggeration to say that there is hardly a watchmaking complication - chronographs, alarms, calendars, repeating-work or tourbillons - that hasn't been mastered by LeCoultre. From 1860 to 1925 the factory turned out around 60,000 watch movements with various complications.

1925 saw the creative enterprise merge with Edmond Jaeger, a watchmaker from Alsace, which numbered Cartier and the French navy among its clients. The resulting synergy generated a further series of outstanding developments. One example among many is the "Duoplan" two-tier movement of 1926.

In 1929 Jaeger-LeCoultre introduced the first wristwatch of its own manufacture. In the same year the caliber 101, which remains to this day the smallest mechanical movement ever made, was put into series production. Comprising 74 parts, it measures 14 x 4.8 x 3.4mm, which works out to 228.48 cubic millimeters. With the dial and hands, it weighs just 0.9 grams.

In 1931, a French engineer, Rene-Alfred Chauvet, patented a design that would con-sign broken watch glasses to history. His rectangular watch-case had a flip-over middle section. In the rough and tumble of everyday life it could be easily be turned over so the glass lay on the underside.

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Jaeger-LeCoultre turned the new "Reverso" into a worldwide success and the leading model of its contemporary collection.

At the 1951 Basle Fair, Jaeger-LeCoultre astonished the watch industry with the "Memovox", a wristwatch with an alarm that was impossible to ignore. The manually wound version was followed in 1956 by the patented caliber 815 which was wound automatically by an oscillating weight. In 1953 the company created a stir with the "Futurematic".

Its highly efficient automatic-winding system and power-reserve indicator allowed Jaeger-LeCoultre to do away entirely with hand-winding.

In 1978, the German manufacturer of tachometers, VDO, acquired a 60 % stake in the equity of ]aeger-LeCoultre S.A. Audemars Piguet, with whom LeCoultre had close friendly relations for a number of decades, secured a minority stake of 40 %. In spring of 2000 VDO sold there stake of Jaeger-Lecoultre (together with IWC and A. Lange & Soehne) to the Richemont Group, that already owned Vacheron & Constantin, Cartier, Baume & Mercier and Piaget.

Today Jaeger-LeCoultre still is distinguished by the thorough finish of its work which extends from the tiniest components of a movement (screws, lever, wheels and pinions) to its costly casing. And the movements in every watch are always made in-house.

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19.08.2000 by Courtesy of Gisbert L. Brunner