Jaeger LeCoultre is a brand that we have covered at length on Life on the Wrist. Mainly, the brand was so influential in the watches they produced, the movements they made, and the impact they had on watch history. The well-known, perhaps over-used cliché of calling JLC the “watchmakers watchmaker” holds true in so many ways with the reference 8986. It is an interesting offshoot of a complication that JLC introduced, and then expanded heavily on throughout their history.

To truly understand the reference 8986, it actually is best to start with the movement inside of it. The reference houses the caliber 481, a historically significant movement to watchmaking. The movement was introduced in 1948. It was based on JLC’s caliber 476, which was the very first automatic movement from the brand. The movement uses a bumper winding mechanism, which has a rotor that bounces between springs around 270 degrees of the movement. The caliber 476 was introduced in 1946. It was not the first automatic movement introduced to the world though. Blancpain had already introduced an automatic movement 20 years before the release of the caliber 476. Rolex had also introduced the Rolex Perpetual 15 years prior to 1946, so JLC was really playing catch-up in some ways.

Going forward two years, the brand introduced their caliber 481. This caliber, unlike the caliber 476, was a historic release for all watch brands. The caliber featured a power reserve indicator. We have an article on how the complication works, so be sure to read our article to get more information on the complication. The movement was first put into the JLC Powerwind, reference E163 and was officially the first production watch from any company with a power reserve indicator. Take that Blancpain and Rolex, am I right?

The movement allows the watch to have a power reserve disc that is located at 12 o’clock on the dial of the watch. On the reference 8986, the disc displays the 40 hours of power reserve, and has a ‘red zone’ which tells the wearer when the watch is low on power which can be quite useful. The power reserve indicator became a signature for Jaeger LeCoultre who expanded this line of watches into the Powermatic, Futurematic, and Réserve de Marche.

Now, to return to the actual watch. The reference 8986 is a 35mm, 10k gold filled cased watch. It features extremely beautiful concave fluted lugs that attach to the case extremely elegantly. The concave sections of the lugs give the watch a differently look than typically watches, which is nice considering the complications of this piece can be found in many other LeCoultre watches. The dial has faded from what was likely a white or cream colour when it was originally produced in 1957 to a darker, golden cream colour with some patina spots.

Looking at the movement of the watch, one can see the inscription ‘VXN’ on the balance cock. This indicates that the movement of the watch was imported to the USA market. To avoid high import taxes and duties on watches, Swiss brands for a period of time imported just the movements to the USA. LeCoultre’s brand was managed by the Longines-Wittnauer group in the USA and VXN was the import code used on LeCoultre movements. There is a misconception that VXN meant that Vacheron Constantin imported the movement because Vacheron Constantin watches used the same import code during this time. All this really means is that the US importing company used the stamp code for both brands.

There are no stamps visible with who produced the case of the watch, so it is unclear if the case was produced in Switzerland or the USA.

The gold filled caseback has an engraved dedication “To Skip, B.S. in E.E, 5-26-57, O.S.U., Mom-Dad-Pete-Larry-Mike”. The inscription likely points to the sale and gifting of the watch to Skip from his family in 1957 upon graduation from Ohio State University with Bachelors Degree of Electrical Engineering. Now, it can be said with almost certainty that Skip was a graduate in 1957 from a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering; the engraving says that plainly. However, there are an abundant of schools that use the acronym OSU. Ohio State University, Oregon State University, Oklahoma State University… to name a few and those are only in the USA where the watch was sourced.

But, based on where the watch was sourced, it is more likely it hails from a graduation celebration from Ohio State University. Upon researching the graduation, it looked like there were 17,256 students enrolled in the undergraduate program that year. Unfortunately, graduation records available to the public from OSU only date back to 1968, so we could not find anything out about Skip, the individual who received the watch. But based on the inscription, it looks like Skip had a large family who gifted him an incredible watch that likely took him through his career.

Gifting watches for special occasions is still a tradition. They are often gifted as birthday gifts, or like Skip, as a gift for a graduation. They are objects that can feel like one is moving on to a next phase in their life, or can mark the accomplishments of a life well lived.

Enjoy!