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I recently purchased some vintage ads that I found to very interesting. The ads appear to be a dual listing for Vacheron Constantin-LeCoultre. You may be asking yourself: “Where did the Jaeger go from Jaeger-Lecoultre?” The answer to part of that question comes from looking at the history of tariffs in the United States.
As a result of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act, LeCoultre watches were cased domestically in North America. The cases were also locally produced, with the finished watches being sold under the LeCoultre name. These watches were sold by the Vacheron & Constantin-LeCoultre company.
This happened from approximately 1932 to 1985. After the LeCoultre trademark expired, however, the name Jaeger-LeCoultre was used globally. That clears up a little of the confusion, but also raises more questions than it answers.
Vacheron Constantin and JLC: A Partnership Through A Shared Partner
Records indicate that the last movement to power an American LeCoultre watch left the factory in 1976. Some say that Vacheron Constantin and LeCoultre shared a relationship centering on the right to import and distribute LeCoultre watches.
This relationship likely has roots dating back to the 1930s, starting with “Allied Watches” as the distributor, which later changed to another company. There is some documentation to support this, advertising Vacheron & Constantin and Allied watches, showing both LeCoultre and Vacheron et Constantin watches.
If you’re wondering what’s up with the “et” and the “&” between Vacheron Constantin, that’s another story. Vacheron et Constantin would remain the firm name until the late 1960’s. The “et” would later be dropped and replaced by “&”. The “&” would also later be dropped, most likely sometime around the late 1970s, truncated to the now modern name – Vacheron Constantin.
Vacheron Constantin and JLC share a mutual parent today of course, as they’re both owned by the Richemont Group. Before they were stablemates at Richemont, they were linked through an unlikely third party, though. That third party was Longines-Wittnauer.
Where Does Longines Fit In With All Of This?
Another interesting thing about the ad from 1964 is the text below that reads “Division of Longines-Wittnauer Watch Company”.
Longines purchased Wittnauer in 1950, and the Longines-Wittnauer group became the North American distributor for LeCoultre shortly after. Longines-Wittnauer was also distributor for Vacheron Constantin watches. So through a link through Longines (now owned by Swatch Group), Vacheron & Constantin-LeCoultre Watches, Inc was a division of the Longines-Wittnauer Watch Company.
Vacheron Constantin-LeCoultre: Cased And Timed In The USA
This interesting arrangement also led to some really interesting watches, such as the LeCoultre Galaxy. These mystery dial watches are double signed, with LeCoultre on the dial and Vacheron & Constantin, or Vacheron & Constantin-Lecoultre stamped on the caseback.
Here’s one that was listed for sale on Hodinkee, and you can see the dual-signatures. You can also see the inside of the caseback, which reads “CASED AND TIMED IN U.S.A. BY LECOULTRE.” The Galaxy Mystery is the only time both companies collaborated on a product together, according to Hodinkee. This was also an exclusive collaboration specifically for the US market.
Another Interesting Alliance: This Time With Cartier
During the 1940s and 1950s, Jaeger LeCoultre also had some type of arrangement with Cartier, according to blommanwatchreport.com. Under this arrangement, Jaeger-LeCoultre watches were labelled Cartier, or dual-signed Cartier/LeCoultre, and sold as such. This may have even included JLC Atmos clocks.
I actually own an ad for a Cartier Futurematic (which is also shown in the blommanwatchreport.com post). You can see the Cartier looks eerily similar to the LeCoultre Futermatic in the feature image of this article.
The Cartier ad dates to 1951, and although it’s hard to read, the dial is dual-signed with LeCoultre. It appears that this relationship might have been a US market exclusive arrangement as well, since most of the surviving ads appear to be associated with LeCoultre, not JLC.
Conclusion
The relationship between Vacheron Constantin and LeCoultre, established by the arrangement with Longines-Wittnauer, is one of the more interesting historical tidbits I’ve learned about so far. I’m pretty sure I’d ever even know about it if I hadn’t stumbled upon these random ads from the 1950s and 1960s that peaked my curiosity.
The Longines-Wittnauer relationship ended in 1995 when Swatch purchased Longines, with Swatch taking over Longines distribution as well. Wittnauer was subsequently bought by Bulova in 2001. There’s some really interesting history behind collaborations that were directly related to US tariffs, which led to some very interesting watches being made exclusively for the US market.
Know more about Vacheron Constantin, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Longines, and Wittnauer and want to add to the discussion? Please post a comment below!