When I decided that I wanted a Reverso, I was very interested in the possibility of getting a decoration on the back. My wife and I were in one of our favourite watch shops in Copenhagen on a Saturday afternoon, and I was really attracted to the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Grande Taille. I liked this model the most, but it was discontinued, so I was pleasantly surprised when they had one in stock.

I asked about the possibility of getting a decoration on the back of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Grande Taille. They had no experience with this, but if I wanted, they had a trip to JLC the following Monday and one of the participants had just cancelled, so I could come along and find out for myself at the factory. Needless to say that I cleared the calendar and went to Vallée de Joux.

It was a fantastic trip. We got to see the factory and what was especially interesting for me was the workshop where they do the decoration: the fantastic enamels on Reversos with old masterpieces, the gem setting, and the engraving. It was incredible to see how these things were done, some of it under a microscope with real attention to the small details. I could write a lot more about this trip, which was arranged for a selected group of costumers to see the Polaris line that had just been announced at SIHH a few weeks earlier, but will try to stay focused on my Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Grande Taille. I’ll just say that it was a fantastic experience, I got to see watches that you normally don’t see in the shops, and especially to see the workshop where they did he decoration of watches: enameling, gemstone setting, and engraving.

Enamel was out of scope as it was too expensive for me, and also because it only could be done with a watchcase of precious metal and my Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Grande Taille was steel. The next step would be to send the picture I wanted to have on the back and then they would make a sketch of how it could be done and a price estimate. You of course need to own the copyright to the picture, or use a picture where the copyright has expired. My late father was an artist, so back in Copenhagen I found one of my late father’s pictures that was suitable to turn into an engraving. With the help of my AD (Ole Mathiesen) we sent a scan to JLC. After a while I got 3 suggestions back, all very good. Looking at the PDF files with the suggestion still required some imagination to visualize what they would look like on the back of my watch. After careful consideration, I chose one. Next step was to send the watch to JLC.

Around 2 months passed and then the call came from the AD: the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Grande Taille was back. It was incredibly exciting to open the package at the AD and see the engraving for the first time. The details they had been able to engrave from my father’s very delicate ink drawing were amazing. I’m full of admiration and respect for the incredibly skilled engravers at JLC. The price ended up slightly lower than the estimate, a pleasant surprise. You kind of get speed blind when you have this hobby, but it wasn’t that expensive, around a fifth of the price of the watch itself, and considering the amount of hand work gone into this, I find it fair.

My reasons for not choosing an independent engraver was first of all that if something went wrong, an engraver at JLC would request a new case and start over. Secondly, I’ve seen some not so good engravings and at the time I didn’t know any engravers well enough to know that they would be able to deliver for my Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Grande Taille. Since then, one of the best engravers in the world has moved to DK, so if I ever need another engraving, I’ll probably leave it to Hanne Lass.