1940s Jaeger-LeCoultre Vintage P478 Manually Wound
Ref: P478
Specification
Lugs : 16mm
Condition : Pre-Owned
Box & Papers : None
Case Material : Stainless Steel
Warranty : 12-Months NON-Waterproof Warranty
Points of Mention
This watch is sold as "Watch Only" and therefore comes with no original Jaeger-LeCoultre box or paperwork. The watch comes fitted on a 16mm leather strap. The watch is from Circa. 1940s and is sold in worn condition, but overall fair condition as you can see. The watch comes with our 12-Months NON-Waterproof Warranty.
The Watch
Here we have a 1940s Jaeger-LeCoultre Vintage P478 with a 33mm stainless steel case. The gentle curve of the case has a lug to lug length of 41.5mm and a case thickness of 10mm ensuring a comfortable fit on your wrist. A smooth bezel holds a domed crystal above the beige dial. An inner minute track with Arabic numeral indices coated in Radium which has aged evenly marks the hours. Elegant sword hands are infilled with Rodium and complemented by a tapered second hand. At 12 o’clock we have the JLC motif completing this understated dress watch. On the reverse, a snap-off case back, inside a high-quality in-house Manually Wound JLC Cal. P478, 17 jewels, 18,000 beats per hour. The watch comes fitted on a 16mm leather strap.
Personal Note
We have had a few of these over the years and they have been refinished dials, so it's great to get a wonderful example that isn't refinished and looks absolutely incredible. This is a true collector's piece, something that vintage enthusiasts will ponder over and imagine what kind of life this watch saw, especially with the beautiful patina on the dial and the radium burn from the hands staying in one place for a very long time... This is what makes vintage so special.
The Brand
Antoine LeCoultre founded LeCoultre in 1833 in the small village of Le Sentier, Switzerland. By 1866, LeCoultre’s workshop had grown from home-run manufacturers spread across Switzerland to installing modern steam-driven machines to power the tools of all of the watchmakers moving them from their homes and bringing them together, in one central unit. Now named LeCoultre & Cie, the company became the very first manufacturer in the Vallée de Joux Switzerland. Antoine and his son Elie LeCoultre employed more than 500 watchmakers in-house. In 1903 Edmond Jaeger, a watchmaker in Paris making watches for the French Navy, challenged the Swiss manufacturers to produce an ultrathin movement. Jacques-David LeCoultre, Elie’s son, rose to the challenge and created the world’s thinnest pocket watch, equipped with the LeCoultre 146 calibre, measuring just 1.38 mm thick. Over the following years, Jaeger and LeCoultre kept in touch, building a strong friendship, and in 1937 Jaeger-LeCoultre was founded. In 2013 it celebrated its 180th Anniversary. Creating iconic timepieces like the Reverso wristwatch to the brilliantly engineered Atmos clock. During the war years, the Mark VII pilot watches of the 1940s were so accurate the Royal Air Force used them as aerial navigation instruments; later they created the first automatic watch to house a power-reserve indicator in 1948 that was used by the US Army Air Corps. Jaeger-LeCoultre has developed and revolutionized the watch industry like no other manufacturer. Since 2000 they have been a fully owned subsidiary of the Swiss luxury group Richemont. This group includes Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, IWC Schaffhausen, Panerai, Piaget, Vacheron Constantin, Montblanc, Dunhill, and Chloé.