There's some burning or scoring to the dial (it looks like radium burn) and I'm unsure of the crown but I am in love. So, just some photos. (Scroll down to that gilt movement!).


(Perhaps someone can tell me why the bumper springs are arranged that way?)

 

Patent dodging?

 

Ya know, as someone who used to practice IPL, that never crossed my mind and yet it could be exactly that.

 

Nice catch! I find those angular radium hands very pretty.

 

Typical crown from the period.

 

Love these old JLCs, especially the cool number font.

 

Very pretty!! I'd say just post war 46-49 at a guess. Nice catch!

 

Beauty... I own two modern JLC ... might be fun to delve into vintage.

 

Thank you both. It's one that I've started to wear more often than you'd suspect. I didn't realise until after I bought this watch that there is no table of serial numbers for Jaeger but in comparing published numbers and known dates, I thought this one was likely to date to the early 1940s. It's all supposition, so I'm happily open to any informed correction.

 

Yeah the design is certainly from the war years, but this bumper movement here I think is actually the first one JLC produced (a cal 476 in 1946) Bumpers were around in the 30's but brands like JLC and Omega really made them popular...until rotors became the next big thing. It is hard to work out with JLC's the cases and the movement serial numbers add to the confusion . It's easier to get a handle on the era from the face design, the hands, and the calibre of the movement. That way you're usually within a 5 year spread or so....other will know more..
https://www.watchprozine.com/jaeger...ge-of-jlc-history-automatic-watches-/5969083/

 

Thank you again. I'm still surprised at how little information seems to be out there for this watch. There's no entry at all for the movement on Ranfft and a half dozen searches throws up little more than this: https://www.watch-wiki.net/index.php?title=JLC_476

There's a parts breakdown on the watchguy.co.uk linked here: https://watchguy.co.uk/technical/Jaeger LeCoultre/1108_JLC 476.pdf

It appears that the JLC467 was used by Vacheron from 1950 with no real changes where it was called the cal 477.

More than that, I can't readily find. There are a number of completed sales still showing on various sites and looking at the prices realised, I'm almost embarrassed to admit to how little I paid for mine. If anyone's got an itch from seeing this, there is one currently for sale in the Private Sales section.

 

Jaeger LeCoultre was successful in manufacturing their own watches, as well as supplying raw ebauches to high-end manufacturers like V&C and Audemars Piguet. As noted by others above, the 476 was its first automatic caliber. The V&C cal. 477, while fundamentally very similar, was finished to a different level:



Both the JLC and V&C versions of this movement were excellent, and among the best of the bumpers.

Here is a link to a very interesting, archived analysis of the JLC/V&C winding systems of their shared automatic movements, written years ago by Walt Odets. For those who don't know the name, Odets wrote many scholarly posts on vintage calibers on TimeZone many years ago, some of which remain archived.

http://www.timezone.com/2002/10/17/automatic-winding-efficiency-of-the-jaeger-vacheron-movement-398/

This is a link to a post originally made by "Dean", who appears on several forums using the screen name "tick talk". It lists virtually all of the calibers shared over the years by JLC and V&C:

http://forums.timezone.com/index.php?t=msg&goto=7038220&rid=12189#msg_7038220

This is yet another useful post on the JLC automatic movements:

https://www.watchprozine.com/jaeger...ge-of-jlc-history-automatic-watches-/5969083/

 

Don't take this the wrong way but ... I love yooze guys!

For no other reason than I had this open earlier (and Tony posted a VC, even though I know that's related to the thread) ... let me share this. I think it's just ridiculously pretty ....