Jaeger LeCoultre Master Geographic

Review by Ludwig

Summary

• The Hunt:

  I "needed" a multiple timezone watch, because I found myself travelling on business a great deal, as well as dealing with lots of people scattered all around the world on a frequent basis. I hoped to find The Ultimate Travel Watch.

  I started my research on the subject. Most of the watches I initially found didn't really appeal to me, for reasons of aesthetics or function. However, I was quickly taken with the Master Geo - instead of just another busy hand on the watch, you actually had a highly-readable separate time display on its own dial. Instead of having to pull out crowns and remember timezone offsets, you had a nice display of city names, manipulated by a simple turn of a crown. I also liked the fact that it was a complicated watch, and that the complication was very functionally useful.

  Perfect! But there was a snag - there weren't any JLC dealers here in the San Francisco Bay Area that had a Master Geo to look at in person.

  Weeks after deciding I was going to have to wait until I visited some other city to see one, one fine day I dropped by Paris1925 , my very first visit there. I was looking to see the Ulysse Nardin GMT+, my second choice. Alas, Richard Paige didn't have one in stock. I mentioned offhandedly to him that what I really wanted was a SS JLC Master Geo, and that it was a shame that he didn't cary JLC.

  He grinned, and scurried off into the back of the store. Moments later, he was showing me a NIB Master Geo that he had squirreled away from the time when he was a JLC dealer, just a few short months before.

  Problem solved!

  
  
• Am I still happy?

  Yes and No :-)

  I still like the watch, and wear it very often for use at work. However, I quickly discovered that it wasn't really The Ultimate Travel Watch I had hoped for, because of problems with readability and function, but was instead much better-suited for stay-at-home wear. In this role, it works great. As a travel watch, I have instead now settled on the Dubey Aerodyn.

  
  
• Would I buy it again?

  Yes, though I'm almost positive that I would get the Master Black version, to improve the legibility situation.

  Specifications

  • Movement:
    The movement is the Jaeger Calibre 929/3, from 1996. This movement is the JLC 889/1 base movement, with the power reserve and multi-timezone complications added. It is a 28,800 bph autowinding movement, 26mm in diameter, 4.85mm high. It has 36 jewels, and 293 parts. (Note that this is more parts than the JLC Master Perpetual!) Kif shock protection, glucydur balance. Ball bearing central rotor. Movement hacks. Circular-grain finish on plates, and Cotes de Geneve of bridges and rotor. Flat hairspring with fine adjustment using micrometer. The movement has been adjusted for 6 positions. Like all members of the JLC Master Control series, it has been subjected (as a completely finished watch) to 1000 hours of rigourous reliability testing in 6 positions, over a temperature range of 4->40 Celsius. Testing includes magnetism (5000 amperes/meter), shock, vibration, and pressure (5 atm) tests. Each watch has been signed and dated by the responsible watchmaker. Movement hacks. ~38 hour power reserve.
  • Functions:
    • Hours, minutes, center sweep second hand
    • Date on separate recessed subdial, with blued hand.
    • Power reserve on separate recessed partial subdial, with blued hand.
    • Second timezone time display, on separate subdial at 6 o'clock.
    • 24-hour indicator, as black/white ball in small window at 9 o'clock position on second timezone time display.
    • Second timezone city selector - at 6 o'clock position on main dial.
    • Second timezone selector crown, at 10 o'clock. Adjusts time of small timezone subdial, based on city selection.
    • One pusher, which adjusts date.
    
    
  • Case:
    Stainless steel. Diameter 38.1mm, height 10.2mm. Slightly domed sapphire crystal. Water resistant to 5 atm. Caseback is solid, and attached to the case with 4 screws. Center of caseback contains inlaid gold "Master Control" medallion. Very nice polish on case. Also available in rose gold, platinum, and w/bracelet. Ref. # 140.840.922B
    
    
  • Strap:
    Padded brown ostrich, with signed JLC stainless steel deployant clasp.
    
    
  • Dial and hands:
    Silver-colored dial. Subdials have contrasting finish. Steel triangular markers at most of the 5-minute positions. Black minute tick marks. JLC initials at 12 o'clock position. The hands are steel dauphine-style, with small tritium inlays. The seconds hand is black/dark blue, and the power reserve and date hands are blued, and are nicely visible. The main hands are the biggest problem with this watch - while beautifully done, they are almost invisible under many lighting conditions and angles, as they vanish into the similarly-finished dial beneath. The tritium is insufficient to really make this watch readable at night. The locale display at 6 o'clock, for setting the second timezone, presents you with the following selection of locations: London/GMT, Azores, blank, R. Janeiro, Caracas, New York, Chicago, Denver, L. Angeles, Anchorage, Honolulu, Samoa, Auckland, Noumea, Sydney , Tokyo, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Dhakar, Karachi, Abu Dhabi, Moscow, Cairo, Paris.
    
    
  • Warranty:
    1 year, extended to 2 years if you send in the registration card.
    
    
  • Price: $7,600 U.S. list price

  Impressions

  • Pros:
    • Accuracy - mine is running +2 seconds per day. I have been wearing it during the day, and storing it on an MTE-4 winder at night.
    • Finish - the polishing on the dial and case are excellent. The dial is incredible, and one of the nicest I have seen.
    • Usability - very simple to set and use the second timezone. The second zone time is quite readable. I find that this watch makes an excellent watch to use when making lots of phone calls to remote destinations - it is very easy to dial-in the time of the other party.
    • Durability - though it is a very complicated watch, I wore it as my daily work watch for several months without paying it any special attention, and it held up just fine.
    
    
  • Cons:
    • Legibility - the fatal flaw of this watch is its unreadability under certain, very common lighting conditions. The main time hands vanish into the dial and subdials below, making it near impossible to tell the time at a quick glance. This renders it less useful as a travel watch. In addition, the tritium on the hands is a complete wast of time - not enough to actually make the hands visible, except in utter black darkness. Consider looking at the Master Black series dial - it seems much more legible.
    • Usability - many people have complained that this watch is backwards - that the home time should be on the subdial, and the local time on the main dial. Personally, I like the layout as it is.
    • Daylight savings time handling - the watch doesn't really handle differences in daylight savings time between timezones very well. You have to fiddle with the main crown to adjust the second timezone for these differences. Also, it doesn't handle non-hour differences between timezones.
    • Function - while some people believe the Geo is The Ultimate Travel Watch, I have come to believe that it is instead The Ultimate Telephone Watch. It is best suited, due to the legibility issues, the daylight savings time handling, and the remote-time-on-subdial layout, to use by the person who is staying mainly in one timezone, dealing with people in lots of other timezones.

  Manufacturer's Info

  • Name: Jaeger LeCoultre
  • Address: Jaeger-LeCoultre Inc. USA, P.O. Box 1608, 188 Brook Road, Winchester, VA 22603
  • Phone: 540-665-0300
  • Fax: 540-723-8034
  • Email: jlcinfo@vdo.com
  • Web: www.jaeger-lecoultre.com

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