Ladies Jaeger-LeCoultre Duoplan 18ct c1945

Jaeger-LeCoultre Duoplan

Among early vintage movements the Duoplan is probably the most technically interesting. By today’s standards, wrist watches from the 1920s and 1930s were small in size and the accuracy of small movement of the era suffered accordingly. The challenge met by the LeCoultre Duoplan was to offer ‘big movement’ performance in a small, compact movement.

Duoplan watches come in a large variety of case and dial styles. The cases are available in stainless steel made of the ‘staybrite’ formulation, solid gold, or platinum, frequently cased in lovely art deco designs. Aside from the stacked nature of the movement, Duoplans are back-set and wound, that is, the winding and setting crown is on the back of the case rather than the coventional side of the case location. This configuration would be revisited by LeCoultre many years later in some subsequent ladies’ pieces and the legendary Futurematic from the 1950s.

Description

Here we have a fully original, unrestored and untouched example of a Jaeger-LeCoultre Duoplan. This beautiful watch carries the unique ‘slide top’ front which conseals the wonderful dial, not only is the case and dial in beautiful condition, the high grade calibre 101 movement is in sparkling condition following a fresh service.

The Dial

The beautiful, original, unrestored and untouched off-white dial shows some wonderful signs of ageing. Although small, the dial carries black ‘pencil’ hour indices which are swept beautifully by the blued steel ‘index’ hands, all of which make this watch much more easily read than many ladies cocktail watches of a similar size.

As mentioned above this dial is concealed by the unique ‘slide top’, giving this watch an incredible presence and feel on the wrist.

The dial is simply signed ‘Jaeger-LeCoultre’ at the very top, with ‘Duoplan’ at the bottom above 6 and ‘Swiss Made’ at the very bottom of the dial below 6.

As mentioned above, this dial is original and unrestored and we have left this completely alone. Usually, we restore the dials of the watches we sell, however, we decided in this case, due to its exceptional condition, to retain its originality and charm for the many collectors who prefer this. It also helps to contrast with almost all of the other watch dials you see on our website which have been restored.

Please note, studio lights, professional-grade digital cameras, and macro lenses can be very unkind to an unrestored vintage watch dial. Also the dial here measures less than 1.25 inches across, so the image you see here may be between 5 – 25 times larger than the watch itself. Therefore please keep in mind you are seeing many tiny flaws which cannot be seen, or will be very hard to see with the naked eye, even under close examination. Suffice to say, on the wrist, in natural light, this dial looks much better and carries a great deal more charm than the photographs portray.

The Movement

Introduced in 1929 as the calibre 101 this is the smallest size Duoplan movement. This example of the Jaeger-LeCoultre carries the verycalibre 101 is a 15 jewel manual wind movement operating at the then-unprecedented 21,600 beats per hour.

It has been fully overhauled and serviced and is in beautiful condition, running beautifully and keeping accurate time, within +6 seconds per day, which is is excellent for any smaller diameter watch.  The watch also has a runtime of 33 hours when fully wound. We are therefore very happy to offer this watch with our 12-month warranty on the movement*.

Precision was at the forefront of the Duoplan movement design. The two-plane setup, with the escapement unencumbered with the winding apparatus and mainspring barrel, allowed the use of a disproportonately large balance wheel relative to the movement size. All things being equal, large balance wheels operate at a high degreee of precision than smaller ones. As mentioned above, many Duoplans operated at 21,600 oscillations per house, a full 3,600 more than the convenient 18,000 oscillations per hour. In 1925, this high operationing speed was unheard of and could very welll be the first serially-produced movement operating above 18,00 oscillations per hour. This greater speed, coupled with an oversized balance wheel of the Duoplan, resulted in far greater accuracy than convetional movements of the era. In 1926, the Duplan was considered a radical movement. As a testament to it’s trailblazing design, higher-speed watch movements did not become commonplace until the mid 1950s, a full 30 years after the Duoplan was introduced.

The movement is signed ‘Jaeger-LeCoultre’, ‘Swiss’ and ‘Fifteen Jewels’, along with the Calibre number 101.

*Please note – our 12 months’ warranty is only applicable if the list price is paid.

The Watch Case

The watch carries a very high quality 18ct yellow gold case with a ‘slide top’ that reaveals the original dial, the small case measures 17mm x 26mm. This wonderful case also carries a hidden crown on the case back of the watch, as mentioned above.

This watch has very well cared for and very lightly used and after careful cleaning and inspection, the watch case has simply required some gentle hand-polishing to return it to its now tip-top condition.

Inside the case-back is all correctly marked as expected with 18ct hallmarks. The exterior of the case back carries the reference number 65531

Please note – vintage watches are almost never waterproof and therefore should be kept clean and dry at all times.

The Strap & Buckle

A high quality black leather strap and a plain gold-plated buckle has been fitted which we feel matches the watch perfectly. However, if a different colour or style of strap is preferred, please do let us know and we will do our best to oblige, free of charge. We carry tan, conker, dark brown and black in stock in plain padded leather, crocodile skin or lizard skin, however we can also obtain most types and colours from our partners at ‘Watch Obsession’ within 48hrs. Please take a look at their huge range of straps if you wish here.

Box and Papers

Although there are no original papers with this watch, the reference numbers, markings, signatures and hallmarks are all correct, dating this watch to c1945.

Detailed particulars will be included with our purchase receipt for your interest and security. A separate insurance valuation for the replacement value of this watch will be provided at the time of sale along with our unique ‘Lifetime Authenticity Guarantee’ which states: “If this watch proves to be anything less than 100% genuine, authentic and original, a full refund will be given at any time”.

The high quality hardwood presentation box shown in the photographs is included in the sale.

Payment and Delivery

If you would like to pay by bank transfer, we will be pleased to assist you with this and pass on a 3% saving to you. Paying by bank transfer for a 3% saving will not affect your 12 months warranty. Similarly, if you wish to pay by International SWIFT or Bank Wire Transfer we will provide you with our BIC / Swift number and our IBAN number.

Please check the import duties and any taxes your government may apply, these are different for each country and, unfortunately, out of our control.

We understand there may be some ‘loopholes’ that may help you avoid these charges; however, attempting to use these could impact our ongoing ability to serve our growing international customer base.

For those who happen to visit London on occasion, we are, of course, more than happy to store your watch until we can meet you in our offices in Kensington, London, and hand your watch directly to you there.

As with all our watches, this watch will be sold under our 14 days no-quibble sale or return policy.