A small hand-wound Reverso in solid pink gold, its black dial framed by applied gold numerals and its reverse cut by hand with an Alpine ibex, dated January 1997. One owner's mark on the panel the Reverso was built to carry.
Black, with applied pink gold Arabic numerals at twelve and six and slim applied dagger markers around the rest, a railway minute ring ruled in a circle across the centre, and a pair of dauphine hands. There is no seconds hand and nothing else on the dial but the JAEGER-LECOULTRE signature and the Reverso name. Against the black, the pink gold reads warm rather than bright.
- 1Twelve and sixApplied pink gold Arabic numerals at twelve and six.
- 2Dagger markersSlim applied daggers around the rest of the dial.
- 3Railway minute ringRuled in a circle across the centre.
- 4Dauphine handsA pair of dauphine hands, and no seconds hand.
- 5The signatureJAEGER-LECOULTRE and the Reverso name, nothing else on the dial.
The reversing case is the reason the Reverso exists. The design lets the case slide out of its cradle and flip, carrying the dial and crystal to safety against the back and presenting a plain slab of metal in their place. On most examples that slab stays blank or takes a set of initials. On this one it holds a full hand-engraved scene: an Alpine ibex, horns swept back, braced on a rocky outcrop, with the date beneath it. The cutting is fine and confident, the coat and the rock worked in close parallel lines, the horns ridged. It is not a stamped motif or a machine pattern but a piece of hand engraving made for a single person, and it turns the back of the watch into the front.
In the hand it is small and flat, a dress watch in the strict sense, meant to sit under a cuff and be turned over rather than to announce itself. The gadrooned bars at the top and bottom of the brancard, the fluted crown at the side, the way the case clicks out and swivels and locks back down, all of it is the same mechanism Jaeger-LeCoultre has refined on this model for decades, here in its plainest and most wearable form.
The case is stamped inside the cradle with the JAEGER-LECOULTRE SWISS signature, the 18K / 750 gold mark, the Swiss assay head and the maker's poinçon, and carries the reference 260.2.86 with the individual number N° 0047, which is strikingly low. Both the dial and the case are signed. The hand-engraved reverse is dated 9.01.97, pairing the ibex, the emblem of Capricorn, with what was most likely a January birthday.
- Maker
- Jaeger-LeCoultre
- Model
- Reverso, small model
- Reference
- 260.2.86
- Serial
- N° 0047
- Case material
- Solid 18k pink gold (750), hallmarked
- Dimensions
- 20mm x 32.5mm
- Lug to lug
- 32.5mm
- Movement
- Manual wind, calibre 846/1
- Dial
- Black with applied pink gold Arabic numerals and dagger indices
- Complications
- None (time only)
- Year
- Circa 1996, engraving dated 1997
- Country
- Switzerland
- Box / papers
- None
- Authenticity
- Guaranteed
- Warranty
- 12 months, mechanical, through Vintage Times Amsterdam from date of delivery
Guaranteed authentic; 12-month mechanical warranty through Vintage Times Amsterdam from date of delivery.
