JAEGER LE COULTRE BRITISH NAVIGATORS Military Pocket Watch

JAEGER LE COULTRE WWII Military British Navigators Pocket Watch. Beautiful 15J gilt movement with Brequet hairspring, stem wind and set, is running well. LeCoultre Caliber 467/2. Dial is black  and cosmetically good for its age and use,  with large Arabic numbers and luminous at the 12, 3 and 6 o’clock positions. Steel luminous hands with some  bit of luminous missing on the hands.   Sunk seconds dial at number six position. Case is chrome over brass with a snap back and some some really good  rubbing to the chrome to expose the brass, as this watch has seen action in WWII.  Watch was in the estate in the UK of  the officer that actually used it.

  Back carries the British military pheon or broad arrow as well G.S.T.P. and 319873  In great condition for a watch that was actually used in WWII. Diameter 51.5 mm. Further to above information, most of the military watches manufactured and ordered by the government during the war years were of good solid quality and reliable although merely utilitarian in terms of their casing and overall quality. However, where absolute reliability and accuracy were the order of the day especially for the Royal Air Force Navigators, a small number of high grade watches were ordered from several of Switzerland’s finest and most prestigious makers. These watches were ordered at a considerable higher cost per unit than the standard military watch. The most celebrated and revered of these were Jaeger LeCoultre and IWC  which topped the list and in some case cost as much as 10 times the amount of the average GSTP watches.

Here we have a Jaeger LeCoultre watch made of solid brass covered in chrome. The dial is enamel over copper and the movement was made to chronometer standards even though they did not have the time to allow for all of the extended tests to be completed to allow it to be marked on movement. It is none the less of the same quality. A scarce military pocket watch that should top off any collection. 

• Circa 1940s