£1,600.00
If it feels like the watchmaker finally lost their mind, you’re not entirely wrong! This is a truly asymmetrical rarity with an intriguing story.
This is a large, historically grounded conversion wristwatch built around an unusual late-19th-century LeCoultre & Co calibre pocket-watch movement and its original enamel calendar dial. At first glance the calendar registers look “wrong” (deliberately off-set and asymmetrical), but the logic becomes obvious once you compare it with a period pocket watch using the same layout: the base was designed as an open-face pocket watch (crown at 12), and during the conversion the entire movement was rotated 90 degrees to fit a Savonnette-style wristwatch architecture. The result is exactly the kind of tasteful “oddity” collectors love: authentic old mechanics, correct enamel work, and a display that looks like nothing modern.
The original pocket watch case was gold and long gone by the time this movement surfaced (typical real-world survivor story). The conversion gives the mechanism a new life – without pretending it was born a wristwatch.
The white enamel dial is the star here: crisp Roman numerals, a traditional minute track, and three separate registers:
The attribution is driven by the technical fingerprint rather than a loud signature on the dial: this LeCoultre & Co “Calibre 9” base is fitted with a palladium alloy hairspring conceptually tied to the work of Charles-Auguste Paillard and the late-19th-century “non-magnetic / non-oxidising” chronometer culture. Paillard is widely credited with developing palladium-alloy solutions aimed at hairsprings that resisted oxidation (corrosion) and helped reduce magnetic influence – technologies that were positioned above everyday watchmaking and closer to precision timekeeping ambitions.
