LeCoultre Futurematic - Black Dial - Full Set!!! - Caliber 497 - Circa 1953-1957

In the early 1950s, the future was everywhere you looked. Jetliners were beginning to shrink the map, everyday machines were learning to run themselves, and the most modern thing a designer could do was hide the workings out of sight. In 1953, into exactly that mood, Jaeger-LeCoultre released a watch it called the Futurematic, and the name fit. It was the first wristwatch ever made without a winding crown, nothing on the side of the case but an unbroken circle of gold, wound by the motion of the wrist alone and sold as the world's first fully automatic watch. The mechanism proved so difficult to perfect that the project is still said to have cost the company more than it ever earned back. Seventy years on, it has barely dated, plainly a watch of the 1950s that still looks as though it slipped back from a decade that had not yet arrived.

An idea that bold could only have come from a house with nothing to prove. Jaeger-LeCoultre is the maker other makers defer to, the watchmaker's watchmaker, and the title is no flourish. For much of the twentieth century, from its workshops in the Vallée de Joux, the Grande Maison supplied the movements that the most respected names in the trade then finished, decorated, and signed as their own. Patek Philippe leaned on its calibers for decades. When Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe, and Vacheron Constantin set out to create the watches that would come to define modern collecting (the Royal Oak, the Nautilus, and the Vacheron 222), all three ran on a single ultra-thin automatic movement that Jaeger-LeCoultre had engineered. None of them carried its name. The house behind those movements made the watch offered here.

Stripping away the crown forced a rethink of how a watch is read, wound, and set. Without a crown to wind by hand, the wearer had to be able to see how much running time was left, so the power reserve was given a register of its own at nine o'clock, its hand swinging from gold into red as the mainspring runs down, answered across the dial by a small seconds at three. Power comes from the in-house Calibre 497, a bumper-wound automatic of seventeen jewels that drove the first Futurematic across its run from 1951 to 1957. It carries a clever piece of foresight, a stopwork that latches the winding the moment the mainspring is full, so the watch cannot be overwound and an active wrist never wears against a barrel with nothing left to take. Setting the time happens at the back, through a flat knurled knob marked DO NOT LIFT, SLIDE. Slide it inward and the seconds hand halts, holding the watch still while the time is set to the exact second. Slide it back, and the Futurematic comes to life again.

The yellow gold-filled case is exceptional, its plating bright and even, the long sculpted lugs and smooth flanks holding the perfectly round silhouette the design was built around, all of it beneath a high domed crystal. The dial is black, the scarcest and most coveted of the colors the early Futurematic wore, and it has come down in strong condition, its lacquered surface deep and glossy but for a scatter of light scratches near the center. Applied faceted markers and slender gold dauphine hands stand sharp against it, the LeCoultre signature and the Futurematic name set above the word SWISS at the foot. Turn the watch over, and the caseback carries a presentation engraving, TO DR. B.F. HOWLAND FROM THE JONATAT CLAN, the kind of inscription that anchors a watch to a single person and a single moment in a life.

And then there is the set, which is where this watch stops being merely rare and becomes something close to singular. It comes complete, with the box, outer box, and papers it was issued with. The Record of Achievement box is a wooden case sheathed in deep black and worked in fine gold tooling, signed LeCoultre, Est. 1833, its silk-lined lid printed in red and gold with the models the marque was proudest of. Around it is the outer printed sleeve, the part almost always lost to time, which names the Futurematic by model, so the box belongs to this exact watch rather than standing in as a generic case. Inside are the Certificate of Particulars and Guarantee from Vacheron & Constantin-LeCoultre Watches, Inc., the firm that sold these watches in America under the LeCoultre name, the booklet on how to care for the movement, and a service card showing it was last serviced in April 1957. A black-dial Futurematic is uncommon. One that has kept its entire original set together, in this condition, has proven impossible to turn up anywhere, in today's market or in the record of what has sold before.

The movement has been partially serviced and the watch is running well, fitted to a black  leather strap.

Terms: This is a vintage timepiece, and as with all vintage watches, accuracy, reserve, and water resistance are not guaranteed. Performance can vary with wear, temperature, and position. Please review all photographs carefully, as they form part of the description, and ask any questions before purchase.

I am happy to complete a full service on this watch prior to shipping, please inquire about service charges.

All sales final.