Jaeger-LeCoultre is going back to its roots in pursuit of what it does the best. The famous Swiss watch brand has recently brought back three of its most special watches, all in very small numbers. These are the Caliber 101 Secrets, the Master Hybris Artistica Caliber 945, and the Duometre Grande Complication A Grande Sonnerie. Each one shows off a different skill that Jaeger-LeCoultre is famous for. As with most ultra-luxury pieces like this, the price is only given if you ask.
The story of the 101 Secrets starts almost 100 years ago when in 1929, Jaeger-LeCoultre built the Caliber 101 which is still the smallest rectangular hand-wound watch movement in the world. It is just 14mm long, 4.8mm wide, and 3.4mm thick. Over the years, the brand has improved it and today it can run for 33 hours on a full wind, which is very good for such a small mechanism.
This new watch uses that same tiny movement, but with a clever and new twist. It is called a "secret" watch, for a reason. Long ago, women would hide these watches inside jewellery, so they could check the time without it looking rude in public. Today, this watch is dressed up like a stunning bracelet and when one press a hidden button at the 6 o'clock spot a part of the bracelet pops open to show the time.
The bracelet itself is dripping with gems consisting of 124 pink sapphires, worth around 16.39 carats, arranged from small to large. On top of that, it also holds 13.26 carats of diamonds. Setting all these stones by hand took 163 hours. Only three of these watches will ever be made.
This second watch previously came out in 2010 and now it's back in a different variantion, with only five pieces made. It mixes together some of the hardest watchmaking skills in one piece. It has a "cosmotourbillon" (a spinning part that tracks time using the stars, not the sun), a chiming feature called a minute repeater and a hand-painted map of the night sky. The star map moves in real time, matching the actual stars above us. It also follows something called "sidereal time" which is the time it takes Earth to spin once compared to the stars, which is a few minutes shorter than a normal day. The chiming feature uses special glass gongs and tiny hammers to strike the time beautifully. The stars aswell are painted using an old technique called grisaille, where the enamel is painted over a dark background by hand, giving the picture real depth.
The third watch is one of the hardest Jaeger-LeCoultre has ever built and only one will ever exist. Its movement has 1,300 tiny parts, 15 complex features and took a whole year just to build and fine-tune. In total, it needs 16,000 separate steps to put together. Its biggest feature is its extraordinary chime. Every quarter hour, it rings out on its own, using four hammers and four gongs, in the grand "Westminster" chime style which is the same sound as Big Ben. New for this version is a titanium inner case, special glass gongs for a clearer sound, extra protection for the chiming parts, and a new see-through dial that shows off the moving parts inside.
This design first appeared back in 2009 andiIt was the first watch ever to combine this style of chime with a calendar that adjusts itself called a "flying tourbillon"and has two separate power reserves, one for keeping time, and one just for the chimes. The chiming barrel alone can power over 600 notes in one mode, and nearly 1,000 in another. The case itself mixes titanium with pink gold, and measures 45mm across.
Together, these three watches show exactly why Jaeger-LeCoultre remains one of the most respected names in watchmaking where history, art and engineering come together in pieces built for the world's most serious collectors.