I have fairly recently bought a nice and rare JLC movement/dial/hand set that came from the workshop of a retired watchmaker. Despite looking high and low there is no sign of the case, so there is no chance of building it all back up into an entirely original watch. I have explained my situation to JLC and they say that they are unable to help supply a service case if I don’t have a case number that matches the movement number in their records. Obviously I don’t have this.

So I have asked them if they would issue an archive extract when there is only a movement number available. I guess they won’t, as that would presumably give me the case number that I could then use to get a service case from them. But does anyone here have any experience of getting JLC archive extracts with only a movement serial number ?

 

If it’s a really old watch are you sure they even have a service case for it? I think their extracts are a little disappointing. You pay over $250 and wait two months for a piece of paper that basically lists all the numbers that you provided to them in the first place. They provide a year with no month and no country where it was delivered to. It helps to sell the watch I guess (I suppose it can prove that the movement belongs in that case) but doesn’t seem to provide any more info than you started with.

 

I've asked them directly whether they have service case or not, but no answer yet. They've basically said no case would be supplied for a service/repair without a serial number for the original one. And also they've now replied saying "no archive extract without BOTH the movement serial number and case serial number".

So if you've got everything but the case then you seem to be stuck with JLC. If they tell me they don't have service cases then it doesn't matter anyway, but if they have service cases it's definitely worth my while to try and get one from them.

 

Have you tried reaching out to Zaf Basha? He seems to be the vintage JLC guru and says that he carries thousands of vintage JLC parts. In my opinion he’s probably your best bet.