golden hands
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THE BIRTH OF AN ICON-the jaeger lecoultre- reverso watchcase
Feb 03, 2021,04:28 AM
in latin reverso means-i turn over.
the birth of the reverso watch case goes back to the original designer a french engineer called alfred chauvot who on the 4th march 1931 submitted to the french patent office a design for a new type of watch case
the patent no 712868 was given to this patent and there were two other supplement submissions asked for by the patent office to clarify it's design-these were no 40330 on 27th may 1931 and the other was submitted on the 21/11/1931 no 41060.the original submission consisted of 17 pages and the supplements totalled another 2 pages.
on the 25/7/1931 cesar de troy bought the pending patent from alfred chauvot.
in november 1931 he founded a marketing company with jaques david lecoultre called specialites horologeres-to commercialise the reverso watch.
the calibre 064 was originally used in these prototypes reverso watches
in 1933- there were 3 new jaeger lecoultre calibres for the reverso case designed and made ready for the approval of the case patent being approved
these were
calibre 404-20.6x12.8x3.1mm for the ladies sized case-(the full title for the calibre is calibre 404,9u) without any seconds hand
calibre 410-24.5x17.8x3.35mm for mens sized case-(the full title for the calibre is calibre 410,11u) with small seconds
calibre 411-24.5x17.8x3.85mm for mens sized case-(the full title for the calibre is calibre 411,11usc) with centre seconds hand
in 1934 the patent was passed and in 1937 the company was renamed-societe de vente des produits jaeger lecoultre
the first watches were shipped to india so that the polo players could appraise there quality.....the rest is history.
the original 1931 reverso watch case design was so good that it was only updated in 1985.
there were a total of 11 calibres used in the reverso case for this period up until the second world war
the question is-what is the date that the reverso case is started from
1- the submission of the patent in 1931 and only exists on paper
or should it be
2- the patent approval in 1934