Jaeger-LeCoultre

I customized these Jaeger LeCoultre Master Geographics for the holidays a few years ago.

As the children grow up they move out. All of us live in different cities or conduct business across multiple continents, and I wanted to anchor the family around a shared hobby.

I bought six Jaeger LeCoultre Master Geographics from the most recent series, and had a master watchmaker customize them to reflect my family’s locations. The Master Geographic is a clever but simple travel time with an interior bezel controlled by a crown at 10 o’clock that rotates to show the current time in different cities, depicted by a small clock at six o’clock with a day/night indicator just to its left. 

The cities JLC had listed on that rotating display were fine, the typical choices, but they weren’t the cities that matter to my family. Nothing against Paris, but I live in Berlin. I like Cairo, but Tel Aviv is more relevant to us. Beijing is the capital of China but I spend a lot of time in Shanghai… and so on. 

And if you’re customizing obscure time zones, wouldn’t you want to see the Sandwich Isles as a time option? 

I bought three for the boys, two for us parents, and one for my mother, a loving grandmother who can’t travel any more but lives vicariously through our stories and pictures uploaded in our WhatsApp group. Her’s is rose gold, the rest of us got steel, but we all took a trip to Jean Rousseau to select a customized strap.

I totally won Christmas that year! Happy holidays to all of you!

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