Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Automatic: No Date

Last weekend I went through some stacks of old documents… Looking for material for a report I am currently working on…

Then my eyes fell on one of these small instructions pamphlets… What caught my attention was the front page text – “Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Automatic“.

Yeah, what’s so special about that you might think…

From the top of my head, I can only think of three Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Automatic without the date complication – two vintage and one modern…

On the LeCoultre side I fear no one really knows… But on the Jaeger-LeCoultre side of the brand, all were either with manual movements or with the date complication – except for three references.

Can you name them?

Jaeger-LeCoultre 1950s-1960s instructions pamphlets – Memovox Automatic

The T.W.O vintage references are the E 853 and the E 857, both with the Calibre 815 inside. The modern – Tribute To Deep Sea Alarm with the Calibre 956 which normally have the date, but for the Tribute To Deep Sea Alarm it was not utilised…

The Calibre 815 was introduced in 1957 and in production for a decade… So how come there are not more references using the movement?

As said – no clue how many references used the movement on the LeCoultre side… On the Jaeger-LeCoultre side one might think it is strange there are not more than two…

But if you put it in perspective, there might be an answer –

During the end of 1950’s there were two developments of the “standard” watch movement that all brands were working on to perfect: 1) Automatic movement 2) Date complication.

In 1959 Jaeger-LeCoultre had the Calibre 825 ready, which met both requirements: Automatic movement with the date complication.

Jaeger-LeCoultre 1963 catalogue – list of achievements

So only two years after the introduction of the automatic Memovox movement, Jaeger-LeCoultre had the automatic Memovox Date movement.

Another reason I think is that during the 1950’s and 1960’s fashion was much more classic than in the 1970’s. So no real need to have many different versions to cover all customer demands.

If we look further in the development of the Memovox movements – neither the Calibre 916 nor the Calibre 918 even had a non-date complication version.

OK, Calibre 914 do not have a date complication but is on the other hand a manual movement…

If we go back to the instruction pamphlet – it is a small folded paper with prints on both sides, each side with three different languages…

I am happy to see that one of the languages used is Swedish!