James Dean: The Curse of the Little Bastard

A Reverso: Paragon of the Dress Watch

Example of engraving on the back of the JLC Grande Reverso Ultra-Thin Tribute.

JCL Gold Cup Polo. History’s most famous reversible wristwatch would never have been invented were it not for Joseph Ford Sherer, then a lieutenant in the 44th Regiment of Sylhet Light Infantry of the East India Company’s army. The story begins in the middle of the 19th century in Manipur, a state in east British India, where Lieutenant Sherer observes locals play a game known as sagol kangjei. Translating as “horse hockey”, the game was long played by local royalty. The game has players on horseback wielding sticks to hit a ball across a rectangular field. The Lieutenant reported his observations to his boss, Captain Robert Stewart. The two men eventually began to play the game, which evolved into what is now known as polo. In March 1859 Sherer and Stewart established their own polo club, Silchar Kangjai Club, and four years later the earliest written rule book for polo was created. With that, the pair started a long tradition of polo-playing among British soldiers in India, and soon polo would find its way around the world with poloplaying soldiers across the Commonwealth – the first polo match was played in Europe sometime in the late 1860s.

The result was an elegant watch with a dial that could flip, protecting it from shocks while offering a case back with a generous surface that could be used for personalisation, JLC today employ eight of the world’s top enamel artists as well as a team of engravers who can exact the clients wishes from initials to full works of art on the case back.

Patent of the Jaeger Reverso.

JLC Grande Reverso Ultra-Thin Tribute est $12,000 – $14,000 As the game grew in popularity, a problem arose: polo players would often damage the crystals on their wristwatches, sometimes with errant mallets. During a visit to India in 1930, swiss business man César de Trey encountered polo-playing British officers who sought a robust timekeeper for use during the game. De Trey had become prosperous as a manufacturer of dentures, though his own passion was watches, so much so that he opened a watch store in Lausanne in the 1920s. For a solution to the polo players’ problem, de Trey sought out Jacques-David LeCoultre III, the third generation of the LeCoultre family to run the eponymous watchmaker, which already had a partnership with the Parisian firm founded by Edmond Jaeger. The pair then recruited French designer Réne-Alfred Chauvot to design a watch capable of withstanding the rigours of polo. That resulted in the Reverso – which is Latin for “turn back” or “turn around” – a wristwatch that had a case primarily of two parts, one of which was a swivelling capsule that could be pivoted 180 degrees on a hinge. Thanks to parallel grooves that formed a track to slide the case, as well as spring-loaded pins as a locking mechanism, the capsule could be flipped over and locked, so the watch crystal (glass) would be facing the wrist. The result was an elegant watch with a dial that could flip, protecting it from shocks while offering a case back with a generous surface that could be used for personalisation, JLC today employ eight of the world’s top enamel artists as well as a team of engravers who can exact the clients wishes from initials to full works of art on the case back. The Reverso continues to be a paragon of the ArtDeco dress watch, delivering a clean and classic design, demonstrated by its longevity as the signature model of JLC. It remains one of the most famous form watches in the world, equalled in stature by only a few other similar shaped cases, the Cartier Tank amongst them. Ninety years after the first Reverso, the iconic reversible watch still retains its connection to polo. JLC introduced the Grande Reverso Ultra-Thin Tribute to 1931 in 2011 for the model’s 80th anniversary which featured in our March ’22 Auction with an estimate of $12,000 - $14,000 . If you have a reverso or another iconic Swiss watch you may want to sell, please do not hesitate to get in touch with one of our experts for a no obligation auction appraisal.

Marcela Jimenez-Ramirez Specialist, Fine Jewels & Watches AJP G.G (GIA) marcela@webbs.co.nz +64 22 077 5610