I’m sure fellow watch enthusiasts have read somewhere, some headline designating London as one of the worst possible places in the world to flaunt your shiny Rolex GMT-Master II. Well, I decided to saunter through the streets of London with my new watch to see for myself, but chose to make myself less of a target by having said new watch not be a sparkly new Rolex.
All joking aside, I did feel somewhat paranoid about this excursion and decided it would be best to minimize conspicuousness by not using my big camera to take photos of my wrist like that watch guy in London’s busiest tourist areas. So please enjoy my iPhone photos today. Still tried my best with them.
Asset Secured
Our foray into the world of Jaeger-LeCoultre starts just a few days before U.S Thanksgiving at Zadok Jewelers in uptown Houston. I had only heard folklore of this JLC Chrono Calendar and had to see it for myself. And I brought my Cartier Santos to trade in, just in case my impulses got the better of me.
Well in the event you couldn’t guess from the title of this post, my impulses didn’t have to fight very hard to get the better of me. It was a halfhearted defense at best. I hastily bid farewell to the Santos and welcomed the Jaeger-LeCoultre into my permanent rotation.
London, Ho!
I’ll come clean: one reason for planning this 2 day trip to London was to keep open the possibility that I very well could’ve purchased this watch there. That went down the drain, however, once I found out that the UK no longer does VAT refunds! Shame. Well time to just stroll around and see all the nice Christmas lights in England’s capital.
This short little jaunt to London was within a much longer stay in Switzerland (so no worries, I didn’t just hop over to London for 2 days and come back to Texas). It had been about 9 years since I had last seen the River Thames. This JLC came with both a leather strap and bracelet, and it being wintertime, the smooth, tan strap seemed rather appropriate for this trip. Still brought both along though.
I do have to mention that this JLC looks a ton nicer on the strap than the Santos did, which also came with both strap and bracelet. It truly is a nice strap, but it’s worth mentioning that the butterfly deployant clasp that fastens to it can require a bit of finger muscle to unbuckle.
After a relatively uneventful flight to London Heathrow Airport, which thanks to my still lingering jetlag I mostly slept through, I checked into my hotel before retiring for the early night with some fish and chips (because, of course).
London Fog
Thanks to the aforementioned jetlag, I found myself out of bed by 7am, and decided to take in some sights before engaging in my favorite kind of tourism, watch tourism. London can be a pretty town.
As the clock crept closer to 10am, I began meandering my way over to Oxford St. for my first purposeful stop of the day: the Time+Tide London Studio, where Andrew McUtchen claimed to have remembered meeting me at Watches and Wonders, but who knows if he was just saying that. Anyway, Andrew, if by some off chance you’re reading this, I’ve included a photo of us below from Watches and Wonders just for redundancy.
The Time+Tide studio had a neat macro cam where you could see a larger-than-life reproduction of your watch on a large screen. It was a good opportunity to salivate even more than I already was at my still-new JLC masterpiece. Speaking of masterpiece, did I mention that this Jaeger-LeCoultre Chronograph Calendar is a chronograph plus a triple calendar and moonphase all in a 12.05mm thick package? This, combined with the sweet and nicely finished JLC Calibre 759 (column wheel, vertical clutch, freesprung balance, blah blah blah) and aforementioned amazing strap/bracelet combo is starting to make my watch-enthusiast brainwashed head think $19,100 is a reasonable price tag for such a beauty.
Anyway, after being introduced to some neat micro-brands for the first time like Serica and echo/neutra, I bid farewell to my watch brethren at the studio and decided it was time to introduce my JLC to the sights and sounds of London.
This Is Not the Bridge You’re Looking For
Was I paranoid about parading my shiny new watch around London? Maybe a little bit. Having the leather strap option greatly reduces its gaudiness. Taking such conspicuous photos of it in public however…don’t try this at home. Or I mean, do.
Afterwards I swung a big ol’ U-turn from the Tower Bridge area on the District Line all the way to Fulham Broadway to pay my respects to Chelsea Football Club. As the saying goes, when in London right?
Up to this point in my collecting journey, I had been missing a chronograph. And though I didn’t really find chronographs to be “my thing”, I decided I needed one to evolve as a watch person and decided to go put in an honest effort to find one I truly liked. After pondering the Zenith Chronomaster Original for the longest time, I ultimately failed to jive with it, due in no small part to its lackluster bracelet/clasp and strange-looking case profile (the caseback protrudes violently!). It also strangely couldn’t form a coherent identity to me (love the El Primero calibre and its story, but a watch can’t just be the sum of its parts!).
Enter the JLC Chrono Calendar. It was a no brainer for me from day 1. At a time also when my Cartier Santos began falling out of favor with me, it presented a perfect swap opportunity and, as mentioned, was an easy decision. Don’t get me started on its relative lack of lume. If you want lume, go look at Seikos. I hear they have good lume.
Tuesday Night Lights
To close out my only full day in London, and it being around Christmastime, of course I had to go looking for bright, artificial decorations. After my stay at Stamford Bridge, dusk began to creep in (at 3pm), and my eyes had a little bit of a feast patrolling around SoHo again.
I have to say, Cartier and Dior really know how to doll up their storefronts! After a really expensive ramen dinner and another quick shot down the Elizabeth line to Covent Garden, I decided I was all Londoned out for the day. As I retired back to Paddington for the night, I placed the JLC on the nightstand and thought to myself: “This JLC might actually be the perfect watch. If it had 100M of water resistance instead of 50M, I might be in danger of the temptation to sell everything else”. Ha, who was I kidding? I think I was just tired.
God Save the King!
The day of my farewell I decided to tack the bracelet back on (it has a quick release system). I can’t heap enough praise on the bracelet. With polished outer and brushed center links and a taper down to 18mm, this bracelet currently holds the title of my all time favorite bracelet. Yes, from Jaeger-LeCoultre. And yes, I have a Rolex Submariner with an Oyster bracelet. God save the king indeed. It even has micro adjustments, and as a big-time bonus has one of the most satisfying clasp locking clicks ever.
As I sat in Heathrow’s Terminal 2 for my flight back to Switzerland, I didn’t even care that it was delayed a bit being so deep in my honey-moon-phase (ha, ha) with the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Control Chronograph Calendar. No watch is perfect, but there are some that are more perfect than others. And I’m not sure if it’s even possible to eclipse the amount of perfect this one affords. Jaeger-LeGoat. The king is dead, long live the king.
Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Control Chronograph Calendar
Case Diameter: 40mm (Wears like it too)
Case Material: Stainless Steel
Case Thickness: 12.1mm (via my own calipers)
Lug-to-lug length: 47.2mm
Weight: 91g/3.21oz on Strap, 140g/4.94oz on bracelet (with a few links removed)
Lug Width: 20mm
Width at clasp: 18mm
Beat Rate: 28,800 vph/4Hz
Movement: Jaeger-LeCoultre 759