Jaeger-LeCoultre

JLC Master Moon - Short Review (many pics)

 

I also have a strong attraction to sport watches by associating, wrongly, "social watches" with old men that wear a suit all the time and smokes cigars on a man's club, discussing what is the best hospital.

Just to illustrate my previous prejudice, my "social watch" is/was a Zenith El Primero Class.

The magic of watches is that sometimes one particular watch pops up and changes everything.

In this case, the Master Moon ("old" version, ref. 140.2.98.S), was the change agent.

The MM caries a round case with a transparent case back, 37mm without the crown and just 10mm of height.
It comes with an alligator strap locked by a fold over buckle. The overall look is 40's/50's.

It wears almost "under the radar" and, during the first days, i had to check, several times, if I was wearing a watch. Cool!

The white dial shows everything (time - with small seconds, date, day of the week, month and the moon phase).
Depending on the light conditions the overall visibility is not great but this is not a diver or cave dweller watch.

Let's look to some pictures (this watch belongs to the "picture challenge" types because of the polished bezel and sides):

The arrow shaped marker are so 50's but fits well for this watch. The MM "looks" claims for some B&W pics.

The MM fits well on the side of my collection of old lenses.

The movement:

The MM is equipped with a JLC movement 891 (base) /448 (date/moon/etc.) -- (this info about the 448 needs to be confirmed) that is, by my book, a small wonder.

This movement, according to my quick research, is used by other non-JLC watches (IWC Small Portuguese 3531.
It carries the JLC bidirectional switching automatic wind mechanism (notice also the 22C gold portion on the winding rotor).
There are good reviews of this movement over the Web.

As anyone expects the MM is a very precise watch. The next picture shows the movement being time tested. Zero seconds/day on the quick test that I did.

During my day to day routine, the watch did not show, or I could notice, any deviation from my time source.

A world of warning - Be sure to read the instruction manual before doing any settings on this watch. The date/moon phase requires a very particular time of the day to be set. Failing of doing this will damage the date mechanism.

As I "rotate" my few watches, this one will stay on a watch winder just to avoid repetitive settings.

This watch is no longer in production but is possible to source one for a very fair price, for the SS version.

Summary - This one is a real keeper. The bad news is that, after wearing it, all my sport watches looks so big.

Thanks for reading and a great weekend to all.