First ringing into the watchmaking scene in 1950 with one of the most practical horological complications to date, an alarm, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox became a truly iconic piece from “the watchmaker’s watchmaker.” Key to its aesthetic and different from other alarm watches at the time; the Memovox had a separate crown for the operation of its alarm function and time-setting. This hinted at a rather ingenious design whereby the Memovox used two separate power reserves. One to power the alarm and one for the normal hands. This prevented the alarm from ringing for too long and draining the power from the watch. While the Memovox was an iconic watch for JLC, with a slew of variants from dive watches, chronographs, and various dress watches, the Memovox collection lives on in JLC’s modern catalog through their Polaris collection, which is what we have here, the Polaris Geographic.

A sizeable dual time-zone dive watch-inspired timepiece with a 42mm diameter case that measures only 11.54mm tall, the Polaris Geographic ref. Q9078640 carries a rugged stainless steel case that commands 100m of water resistance and is powered by JLC’s own automatic cal. 939 movement. Boasting a gray blue dial with a fume finish across its surfaces, the dial fades from a dark grey along its raised chapter ring to a light gray-blue at its textured center. Sporting a raised internal chapter ring that surrounds the dial’s textured center and houses the city display, this chapter ring is not an internal bezel as is often fitted to Polaris models, and so its winding crown at 11 o’clock operates the city display. Featuring applied numerals and indices and complications such as its power reserve indicator, 24-hour indicator and second timezone for the corresponding city at 6 o’clock, this timepiece is a beautiful watch on the wrist filled with history and impressive horological might that makes it a wonderful piece to add to your collection.