Source: https://myreversostory.com/stories Summary: Collector stories, pièces uniques made for princes and aviators, enamel art series and commemorative editions: what has been put on the back of a Reverso. Updated: 2026-11-02 Publisher: My Reverso Story (https://myreversostory.com), an independent collector archive, not affiliated with Jaeger-LeCoultre. The Stories # Every back tells a story. A prince in the Foreign Legion. A king who was never crowned. An aviator who vanished. A painting stolen and found in a stone wall. And, eventually, yours. These are the stories of what collectors and the manufacture itself have put on the second face of a Reverso. I Yours  ·  43 stories ## Collector Stories The reason this site exists. The pieces below were made for princes and museums; these were made for anniversaries, for fathers, for a village that isn't on the map anymore. Every one is submitted by its owner and read by a person before it appears. ### Mitch & Linda Katz Goodbye, Wave ### Goodbye, Wave Mitch fell in love with one side of a Reverso and couldn’t live with the other. So he asked Jaeger-LeCoultre a question they don’t usually say yes to — and one of only eight became something else entirely. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/mitch-goodbye-wave) — Mitch & Linda Katz ### Randy Kamin My Baby ### My Baby The very first JLC Randy ever bought is already written into his will — engraved with the family initial, and meant for his son one day. It turned out to be the start of a collection nineteen watches deep, and counting. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/randy-kamin-first-reverso) — Randy Kamin ### Edi, Deni & Brion Shipoli Our Istanbul ### Our Istanbul Edi and Deni wanted an engraving that meant something, not a postcard — no bridge, no mosque, no obvious skyline. Istanbul jeweler Sevan Bıçakçı turned a conversation about tea, simit, and seagulls by the Bosphorus into three tiny works of art, and one of them became theirs. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/shipoli-istanbul) — Edi, Deni & Brion Shipoli ### Sarp Vahabi The Diplomat’s Reverso ### The Diplomat’s Reverso An early steel Reverso found through an Istanbul dealer, its case back engraved with a signature and a date: 29·X·934. The signature belonged to Nicolae Titulescu, and the date was the day Atatürk received him in Ankara. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/sarp-titulescu) — Sarp Vahabi ### Roni Madhvani The Reverso of Belief ### The Reverso of Belief A wedding gift from his wife, later sent to Le Sentier with an unusual request: a portrait of the Gujarati saint Jalaram Bapa on the reverse. What came back was not what he had pictured — and he has cherished it ever since. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/roni-jalaram) — Roni Madhvani ### Farhan Hussain My Daughter’s Reverso ### My Daughter’s Reverso Ordered a week after his daughter was born, then sent back to Switzerland so her name could be lacquered across the reverse. He wears it carefully, because one day it will be hers. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/farhan-daughter) — Farhan Hussain ### @decowatches The Gibson Guitar Reverso ### The Gibson Guitar Reverso Engraved with a 1964 Gibson ES-335 — the same year as Eric Clapton’s famous cherry red guitar — to mark more than twenty years playing guitar, including one professional stretch. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/decowatches-gibson) — @decowatches ### A DC Watch Enthusiast George Mason Flower ### George Mason Flower A board appointment at George Mason University’s business school became the reason for a first Reverso: green dial to the front, and on the back, the school’s colors reimagined as a hand-decorated Art Deco floral engraving rather than a literal crest. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/george-mason-flower) — A DC Watch Enthusiast ### Paul Stewart A Portrait from the Family ### A Portrait from the Family An empty case back bothered him for years, until he remembered a family sketch by his great-great-grandfather’s cousin, the Russian Impressionist Leonid Pasternak, and turned a century-old portrait into an engraving. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/paul-stewart-portrait) — Paul Stewart ### Taylor Wos Wisdom ### Wisdom Father and daughter shared a love of Art Deco New York, and turned it into a one-of-one engraving of Lee Lawrie’s Wisdom from Rockefeller Center, inscription and all. The watch later turned up, unplanned, in The New York Times. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/taylor-wos-wisdom) — Taylor Wos ### Rashawn Smith The Aston Martin Reverso ### The Aston Martin Reverso A 2007 collaboration piece built around the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, bought secondhand from the original owner’s son after a sale that started as a favor between strangers and ended as a purchase. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/rashawn-smith-astonmartin) — Rashawn Smith ### Haoming Wang A Tribute in Detail and Colour ### A Tribute in Detail and Colour A drawing of the musician Sarah Àlainn in a yellow dress, commissioned from a Sydney artist and hand-engraved on the case back. Engraving kept every detail except the yellow, so the colour came back another way: in the strap. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/haoming-wang-tribute) — Haoming Wang ### SM The Dragon ### The Dragon A blank Reverso found at a small auction in eastern France and carried to Hong Kong as a godfather’s surprise gift. Then a self-taught engraver, who is also an actor and model, cut a dragon into it in the shape of the number eight. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/sm-dragon) — SM ### @jlc.reverso The Reverso of the Temple of Dawn ### The Reverso of the Temple of Dawn One of 39 made for Thailand: three for the colours of the flag, nine for King Rama IX. A yellow dial for the light of dawn, and on the reverse, Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/jlc-reverso-wat-arun) — @jlc.reverso ### Ian Cassar A Reverso of Hope ### A Reverso of Hope The Cassar family coat of arms, engraved by Jaeger-LeCoultre in Malta: a red cross and four letters, SPES, Latin for hope. It is meant for a son who is nine today, with a message for when he is older. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/ian-cassar-spes) — Ian Cassar ### Robin Tong Lin Wong A Reverso for a Milestone ### A Reverso for a Milestone The Nonantième was meant to be spoken for by the time he went looking. A meeting in Singapore with Jaeger-LeCoultre’s then CEO turned a missed allocation into the watch that marks his startup’s exit. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/robin-nonantieme) — Robin Tong Lin Wong ### Bird The Little Reverso from Japan ### The Little Reverso from Japan Found in Japan, left behind, regretted for six months, then brought home by a friend who happened to be travelling there: a small manual-wind Reverso in the proportions it took years to find, now worn on straps in the colours of city pop. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/bird-little-reverso) — Bird ### @wristwatch_kitja The Reverso Worth Traveling For ### The Reverso Worth Traveling For A red dial that could not be bought at home, and the first time a love of watches became a reason to cross a border: the Grande Reverso Ultra Thin Rouge, a 2012 boutique edition for the Reverso’s eightieth year. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/kitja-rouge) — @wristwatch_kitja ### Win The Reverso That Waited Twenty Years ### The Reverso That Waited Twenty Years A mother’s offer, a Reverso on final sale, and a promise to wait one week. The watch was gone. Almost twenty years later, another Reverso Duoface brought it all back. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/win-duoface) — Win ### @thefinesttastesclub A Reverso from Another India ### A Reverso from Another India A 1930s Reverso sold through Favre-Leuba in colonial India, found in West Bengal in 2026. On its back, a blue lacquer border and the traces of an engraving someone removed, for reasons that may never be known. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/finesttastes-india) — @thefinesttastesclub ### Mitch & Linda Katz The Imperfect Engraving ### The Imperfect Engraving A circular fleur-de-lis pattern, discovered during a dull lecture, had no business fitting a rectangular Reverso case — until an engraver in Switzerland made it work. Then a friend spotted something a photograph never had. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/mitch-chocolate-engraving) — Mitch & Linda Katz ### Farhan Hussain My Son’s Reverso ### My Son’s Reverso Bought in 2017 and engraved with his own initials in 2023 — a year before his son was born. He has occasionally wished he had waited, and then decided the initials were the better inheritance anyway. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/farhan-son) — Farhan Hussain ### @decowatches My Son’s Reverso ### My Son’s Reverso Bought with his wife during their honeymoon in Milan, with a promise made that same day: whenever a first child arrived, its initials and birth date would go on the back. Three years later, he kept it. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/decowatches-son) — @decowatches ### @jlc.reverso The Tourbillon Made My Own ### The Tourbillon Made My Own One of fifty platinum Tribute Tourbillon Duofaces, all made with a blue dial. Through the Bangkok boutique this collector asked the Manufacture for salmon instead, and waited more than a year to see it. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/jlc-reverso-tourbillon) — @jlc.reverso ### Mitch & Linda Katz My Engraving ### My Engraving A pattern Mitch thought was his alone nearly went to someone else — until the manufacture realized the second request was from the same client. Today it appears, with quiet variations, on four different Reversos. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/mitch-my-engraving) — Mitch & Linda Katz ### @jlc.reverso A Reverso for Spring ### A Reverso for Spring Mucha’s Spring in grand feu enamel, one of only eight. After a long search for a yellow-gold Reverso with guilloché and enamel, this collector chose Spring for its colours and for what the season means: renewal, and a new beginning. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/jlc-reverso-mucha) — @jlc.reverso ### Mitch & Linda Katz The Watch I Designed, and the One I Bought ### The Watch I Designed, and the One I Bought Over lunch at the Shanghai Film Festival, Mitch sketched his own watch on a napkin and pitched it to Jaeger-LeCoultre’s CEO that same evening. The napkin watch never happened — but a boutique visit to borrow a watch for a podcast ended, somehow, with him buying it instead. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/mitch-designed-watch) — Mitch & Linda Katz ### Edi, Deni & Brion Shipoli The Reverso That Started It All ### The Reverso That Started It All Edi and Deni went to New York with another brand’s watch already picked out for Deni. They came home instead with a limited-edition Reverso Duoface they had specifically told the boutique they weren’t buying — and it became the one watch in the house Edi still isn’t allowed to wear. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/shipoli-fagliano) — Edi, Deni & Brion Shipoli ### Mitch & Linda Katz Number One of Five ### Number One of Five A friend mentioned a watch Mitch had never really considered — and before lunch was over, he’d tracked down the last one in existence. It turned out to be number one of only five ever made, the smallest mechanical movement in the world floating inside a transparent sapphire case. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/mitch-101) — Mitch & Linda Katz ### Robin Tong Lin Wong The Reverso That Won Me Over ### The Reverso That Won Me Over Three Reversos on the shortlist after Watches & Wonders 2025, two boutique visits in one week, and one that kept drawing him back: the Tribute Geographic, a blue sunburst dial on one side and a hand-lacquered world map on the other. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/robin-geographic) — Robin Tong Lin Wong ### @decowatches Love at First Sight ### Love at First Sight First seen on Jérôme Lambert’s wrist at a boutique event in 2025, and ordered just under three months later: a flying tourbillon in a steel Reverso, and a watch he knows will never leave his collection. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/decowatches-tourbillon) — @decowatches ### @jlc.reverso Two Reversos, Two Anniversaries ### Two Reversos, Two Anniversaries Two anniversaries in one year, written into the production numbers: 25 in rose gold for the liberation, 55 in steel for the nation. Both wear a deep green dial with scarlet numerals, and this collector found one of each. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/jlc-reverso-kuwait) — @jlc.reverso ### Mitch & Linda Katz The Watch Widow ### The Watch Widow For years, Linda called herself a “watch widow” — happy to love the man, not the hobby. Mitch spent months looking for the one Reverso that might change her mind, right down to a buckle she could swap herself. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/mitch-linda-duoface) — Mitch & Linda Katz ### Edi, Deni & Brion Shipoli The Most Beautiful Watch Ever Made ### The Most Beautiful Watch Ever Made A weekend in New York with a nine-month-old Brion in tow, a watch that looked classical on one side and radically modern on the other, and a passing joke to Jaeger-LeCoultre’s CEO about naming a Reverso Memovox after himself. Edi is still waiting on that last one. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/shipoli-nonantieme) — Edi, Deni & Brion Shipoli ### Robin Tong Lin Wong The Reverso I Couldn’t Forget ### The Reverso I Couldn’t Forget He chose the Geographic in 2025, but the Or Deco Milanese he had handled as a prototype would not leave his head. A year later he ordered one; it arrived in June 2026 and has hardly left his wrist since. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/robin-or-deco) — Robin Tong Lin Wong ### @jlc.reverso The Reverso That Changed Everything ### The Reverso That Changed Everything Five hundred pieces for the Reverso’s sixtieth birthday, and three firsts at once: the Grande Taille case, the first complications in a series Reverso, and the first sapphire back. Every complicated Reverso since starts here. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/jlc-reverso-60eme) — @jlc.reverso ### Mitch & Linda Katz Linda’s Second Reverso ### Linda’s Second Reverso When Mitch fell for the Chocolate Reverso, someone thought to show them another watch — a rose-gold Duetto meant for Linda. It became her second Reverso, and a quiet sign she was no longer just watching from the sidelines. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/mitch-linda-second) — Mitch & Linda Katz ### Edi, Deni & Brion Shipoli The Call Before the Appointment ### The Call Before the Appointment A 9 a.m. phone call in New York, a boutique appointment two hours away, and a scramble to secure a steel Reverso chronograph before that year’s allocation ran out. It ended up finding its biggest fan not in Edi, but in his son. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/shipoli-chronograph) — Edi, Deni & Brion Shipoli ### @jlc.reverso A Brown Dial from 1933 ### A Brown Dial from 1933 A chocolate-brown dial in 1933, when nearly every dial was white or silver, and made that way only because its first owner asked. Ninety years later Jaeger-LeCoultre chose it for the first edition of The Collectibles. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/jlc-reverso-1933) — @jlc.reverso ### Mitch & Linda Katz Number One — and the Piece of Lint ### Number One — and the Piece of Lint Number one of only fifty, handed over at a boutique opening in the snow — until a loupe revealed a speck of lint trapped beneath the crystal. Getting it right took three trips back to Switzerland. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/mitch-lint) — Mitch & Linda Katz ### Edi, Deni & Brion Shipoli Our First Watches and Wonders ### Our First Watches and Wonders A steel-versus-pink-gold debate at midnight in a Geneva hotel room was settled by the youngest member of the family: four-and-a-half-year-old Brion wanted the blue one. It became the watch that now stands for the whole family’s first trip to Watches and Wonders, and their first visit to the Vallée de Joux. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/shipoli-geographic) — Edi, Deni & Brion Shipoli ### Mitch & Linda Katz The Scratch That Wasn’t There ### The Scratch That Wasn’t There A dropped pen, a hand reached under a car seat, and Mitch’s heart sank — his nearly new Reverso was scratched for good. Weeks later, picking at the case, he discovered the scratch had never existed at all. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/mitch-scratch) — Mitch & Linda Katz ### Mitch & Linda Katz Linda Said I Had to Buy It ### Linda Said I Had to Buy It The woman who once called herself a “watch widow” looked at the rarest watch in the room and told her husband exactly one thing: buy it. Only ten were ever made, and Linda picked out number eight herself. [Read the Full Story](https://myreversostory.com/stories/mitch-repeater) — Mitch & Linda Katz 43 stories II 1933 – 2009  ·  documented individual watches ## Pièces Uniques Watches made for one person, engraved or enamelled by the manufacture's own hands. Some of the owners are among the most famous people of the twentieth century. Some have never been identified at all — the engraving survived; the name did not. 1933 ### [The Balbo Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/balbo-reverso) **Craft:** Hand engraving**Made for:** Commemorating Italo Balbo Among the earliest documented personalised Reversos, engraved with a map and route commemorating Italo Balbo’s mass transatlantic formation flight to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. Barely two years after the patent, the blank steel back was already being used to record history rather than merely survive it. Source: Time and Watches; JLC Heritage 1932 ### [The Roger Feutz “Gardien Acrobate” Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/roger-feutz-gardien-acrobate-reverso) **Craft:** Blue dial · hand-engraved case-back**Made for:** Roger Feutz, goalkeeper, FC Lausanne-Sports A blue-dialled Reverso Standard, one of a set given in 1932 to the players of Lausanne-Sports after the club won the 1931–32 Swiss championship — each case engraved with the club’s initials and the individual player’s name, distributed through Spécialités Horlogères S.A. This particular watch belonged to Roger Feutz, the team’s goalkeeper, known to Swiss football fans as “le gardien acrobate” (the acrobat goalkeeper); he died in 2003 at 94. The Reverso itself was barely a year old at the time — among the earliest recorded examples of what would now be called a sports sponsorship in watchmaking. The piece surfaced publicly only in 2025, rediscovered and exhibited by Maison Riondet at FAB Paris, and appears in neither the standard reference works nor Manfred Fritz’s otherwise exhaustive *Reverso — La légende vivante*. Source: Montres de Luxe, July 2025; Maison Riondet, FAB Paris 2025 2016 ### [The Scuola Grande di San Rocco Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/scuola-grande-di-san-rocco-reverso) **Craft:** Grand feu miniature enamel**Made for:** Displayed at the Jaeger-LeCoultre boutique, Venice A yellow gold Reverso Grande Taille whose case-back reproduces the main marble staircase of Venice’s Scuola Grande di San Rocco — the confraternity house famous for its Tintoretto cycle, whose restoration Jaeger-LeCoultre has sponsored since 2013. Unveiled at the 73rd Mostra (Venice Film Festival), the piece works almost entirely in a narrow band of stone-grey tones, since the marble subject left little room for colour contrast; the straight architectural lines fought the curved case surface throughout, and the firing process flattened the marble’s texture more than expected. Three weeks of work, 32 dryings at 230°C, and 15 firings at 800°C. Announced alongside a Facebook campaign — each “like” during one week in September 2016 triggered a donation toward the restoration — which drew over 2,500 likes and led to a final €15,000 gift to the Scuola. Source: MasterHorologer, Sept 2016; MyWatch EN, Sept 2016; Luxsure, Sept 2016 2016 ### [The Carmen Chaplin Heart Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/carmen-chaplin-heart-reverso) **Craft:** Hand-engraved case-back**Made for:** Carmen Chaplin, actress and JLC ambassador A Reverso Classic Medium engraved with a heart, freehand-drawn by actress Carmen Chaplin — granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin and a Jaeger-LeCoultre ambassador — as the opening gesture of the same San Rocco restoration campaign above. At the manufacture’s lounge during the 2016 Venice Film Festival, guests were invited to sketch a heart in a digital guestbook to pledge support for the restoration; Chaplin’s sketch was the first, and the one chosen to be engraved onto this watch. Actress Zhao Wei and other guests contributed sketches of their own to the same project. Source: Luxsure, Sept 2016 2026 ### [The Charlie Chaplin Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/charlie-chaplin-reverso) **Craft:** Hand engraving, available to order**Made for:** Lionel Meylan boutique exclusive, Vevey Not a single watch but a bespoke engraving offered exclusively through Lionel Meylan’s boutique in Vevey, on any Reverso the client chooses: the instantly recognisable silhouette of Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp, seen from behind — bowler hat, cane, oversized trousers, turned-out feet. The idea came from Julien Meylan and was approved by the Chaplin family and by Bubbles Inc., which controls the Chaplin estate; Vevey and neighbouring Corsier-sur-Vevey were Chaplin’s home for his final decades, and the Manoir de Ban there, now a museum, counts Jaeger-LeCoultre as a partner. Chaplin’s daughter Annie Chaplin has called the result “an imprint of the eternal Vagabond created with class, luxury, and finesse.” Source: Lionel Meylan, 2026 2011 ### [“Reverso for Emergency”](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/reverso-for-emergency) **Craft:** Red lacquer case-back**Made for:** Charity campaign, Venice Film Festival A red heart lacquered across the entire case-back, made for a 2011 campaign timed to the Reverso’s 80th anniversary and the 68th Venice Film Festival, in support of Emergency’s Salam Centre for cardiac surgery in Khartoum, Sudan. Photographer Valeria Golino shot friends, colleagues, and her then-partner Riccardo Scamarcio wearing the watch with a hand over the heart for a Vanity Fair Italia portfolio titled “Il cuore è altrove” (“The Heart Is Elsewhere”) — Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Patricia Arquette, Ferzan Özpetek and Isabella Ferrari among them — before the watches appeared on the Venice red carpet. Jaeger-LeCoultre committed to funding ten cardiac operations at the Salam Centre, one for each night of the ten-night festival; the watches themselves were never for sale. Emergency’s own 2011 financial report records that Jaeger-LeCoultre later donated three examples — catalogued at Christie’s as lots 312–314, sold without reserve or premium for the charity’s benefit, one identified as a steel Grande Reverso Ultra Thin, ref. Q2788520, its back in red lacquer with the Salam Centre logo. The idea plays on the Reverso’s own origin story: a case built to protect a mechanical heart, turned instead into a message about protecting human ones. Source: Vanity Fair Italia, 24 Aug 2011; Emergency Annual Report 2011; Christie’s, May 2012 2012 ### [“A Rose for Emergency”](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/a-rose-for-emergency-reverso) **Craft:** Red lacquer case-back**Made for:** Charity campaign, Venice Film Festival The following year’s chapter of the same partnership: a red rose in lacquer, its stem forming the word “for” as it runs toward Emergency’s circled-E emblem — “A Rose for Emergency,” spelled out entirely in one image, with no maison or festival branding anywhere on the case-back. Made for the 69th Venice Film Festival in support of Emergency’s maternity centre in Anabah, Afghanistan, surrounded by the rose garden that gave the campaign its symbol; actress Cristiana Capotondi, the project’s patron, visited the centre that July. Jaeger-LeCoultre funded the centre for the length of the festival, timed to the roughly ten births a day the centre was seeing — over 100 expected across the festival’s run. Men’s and women’s Grande Reverso Ultra Thin versions were made; Emergency’s 2012 annual report confirms two were donated by Jaeger-LeCoultre and later sold at auction, with proceeds going entirely to the Anabah centre. Source: Emergency Annual Report 2012; Jaeger-LeCoultre press materials, Aug 2012 1940s ### [The “Wimbledon” Cloisonné Enamel Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/wimbledon-cloisonne-enamel-reverso) **Craft:** Cloisonné enamel dial, Stern Frères**Made for:** Unknown A stainless steel Reverso (case No. 24624) whose cloisonné enamel dial depicts a tennis player against a green grass ground — read by specialists as a Wimbledon reference, since a closely related dial with a red clay ground (read as Roland Garros) is separately documented. The dial is stamped 104*009 on its edge, in the numbering system used by Stern Frères, the Geneva firm that supplied cloisonné dials to Patek Philippe, Rolex, Omega and Jaeger-LeCoultre alike — 104 is Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own house code in that system, and the digits after the star identify the specific design. A comparable clay-ground “tennis” dial sold at Christie’s in 2018 for more than CHF 50,000; the green-grass version here was, as far as the consignor could establish, the first of its kind to appear at auction at all. Source: Auction house cataloguing, cloisonné tennis dial group 1952 ### [The Roland Garros 1952 Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/roland-garros-1952-reverso) **Craft:** Cloisonné enamel dial, Stern Frères · engraved case-back**Made for:** Possibly presented to Jaroslav Drobný A steel Staybrite Reverso (case No. 467193) whose cloisonné enamel dial — stamped 104*014, the “tennis player” design in the Stern Frères numbering system — shares its maker with the Wimbledon-ground dial elsewhere in this archive. The case-back is engraved “Roland Garros 1952,” alongside a facsimile signature of René Lacoste and Lacoste’s crocodile emblem; Lacoste, a former French Open champion himself, had founded his clothing house in 1933 and was closely tied to the tournament. Auction house research considers it highly probable, though unconfirmed, that Lacoste presented this specific watch to that year’s men’s singles champion, the Czech player Jaroslav Drobný — who also won Roland Garros the year before, in 1951, and Wimbledon in 1954. Named for the aviator and WWI hero, the Roland Garros stadium was built in 1928 for France’s first Davis Cup entry. Source: Christie’s lot notes, Reverso Roland Garros 1952 1937 ### [The Cloisonné Polo Player Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/cloisonne-polo-player-reverso) **Craft:** Cloisonné enamel dial · sweep centre seconds · engraved initials**Made for:** Initials “AJ” A steel Reverso, ref. 1101 (case No. 25027, movement No. 74350), fitted at some later point with a cloisonné enamel dial depicting a polo player in action — an appropriate choice for a case shape born on the polo field, even though the dial itself was added after the watch’s 1937 manufacture rather than at the factory. Runs the octagonal-shaped, nickel-finished calibre 411 with 15 jewels and a rotating sweep centre-seconds disc built into the rectangular back-plate, a genuinely unusual complication for the period. The case-back carries engraved initials “AJ,” whose owner is not otherwise documented. Source: Auction house cataloguing, ref. 1101 c. 1999–2000 ### [The Wrist Reverso “Topaz” (Alfons Mucha)](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/wrist-reverso-topaz-alfons-mucha) **Craft:** Grand feu enamel miniature painting, Miklos Merczel**Made for:** Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own archive/museum A Grande Taille wristwatch carrying the same Topaz miniature that Jaeger-LeCoultre also produced as one of four jewelled Reverso pocket watches in its “Pierres Précieuses” set (catalogued elsewhere in this archive) — reproducing Alfons Mucha’s 1900 lithograph *The Precious Stones: Topaz*, one of four panels personifying gemstones as women, alongside Ruby, Amethyst and Emerald. Whether this wrist version was ever offered for sale, or exists only as an archive/prototype example held by the manufacture itself, isn’t established by any source found so far; it’s catalogued here as a unique piece for that reason, distinct from the four confirmed pocket watches. Almost certainly built on the same Grande Taille platform as the contemporary Mucha Four Seasons watches — 18k yellow gold, manual movement, white enamel dial, small seconds — though this specific reference has not been confirmed. Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre archive photography 2003 ### [The Tamara de Lempicka Quartet](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/tamara-de-lempicka-quartet-reverso) **Craft:** Grand feu enamel miniature painting**Made for:** Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own archive — never offered for sale Four Grande Taille Reversos shown at the Geneva watch fair (SIHH) in 2003, each case-back enamelled with a miniature reproduction of a different painting by Tamara de Lempicka, the Art Deco portraitist — and, unlike almost everything else in this archive, never produced for sale at all. One collector who saw them has written that he has “forever dreamed” of the set since. Pieces like this exist in Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own accumulated stock of enamel work for reasons that have nothing to do with commerce: some are works in progress, others demonstration pieces the manufacture keeps specifically to show at exhibitions, since reproducing a painting in enamel miniature demands that the enameller match not just the original artist’s draughtsmanship at a fraction of the scale, but the exact colour of the source work as well. Individual titles for the four Lempicka paintings reproduced are not documented in the source describing them. Source: Collector account, SIHH 2003 2000 ### [The “Big Dipper” Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/big-dipper-reverso) **Craft:** Double dial, 24-hour display, custom starburst dial**Made for:** Unknown A steel Reverso built around a double dial with a 24-hour display, its specially made blue starburst dial mapping the stars of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major) across the face rather than showing a conventional astronomical complication. Case No. 2’190’694, dated by Christie’s to circa 2000. The kind of one-off constellation dial that turns a Reverso into something closer to a wearable star chart than a watch. Source: Christie’s cataloguing, ref. 272’854 1980s ### [The “Reverso II” Enamel Coat of Arms](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/reverso-ii-enamel-coat-of-arms) **Craft:** Enamel coat of arms**Made for:** No. 185413 An 18k yellow gold reversible wristwatch with an enamelled coat of arms on the case-back, fitted with an 18k yellow gold deployant clasp signed by Cartier rather than Jaeger-LeCoultre — a detail auction cataloguing leaves unexplained, though rival maisons occasionally supplied straps, clasps or cases for one another’s watches earlier in the 20th century, particularly when sold through shared retail or family connections. Source: Antiquorum cataloguing, No. 185413 1950s ### [The Steel Enamelled Coat of Arms Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/steel-enamelled-coat-of-arms-reverso) **Craft:** Enamel coat of arms**Made for:** Movement No. 17644 A steel Reverso with an enamelled coat of arms on the case-back, movement No. 17644, case No. 11215 — continuing, two decades on, the same personalisation tradition that produced the 1930s coat-of-arms Reversos elsewhere in this archive, this time on a steel rather than precious-metal case. Source: Antiquorum cataloguing, movement no. 17644 1930s ### [The Onyx Bracelet Coat of Arms Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/onyx-bracelet-coat-of-arms-reverso) **Craft:** Polychrome enamel coat of arms · extensible steel bracelet with onyx plates**Made for:** Unknown A steel gentleman’s Reverso whose case-back carries a red and yellow polychrome enamel coat of arms set against a black ground — paired with an extensible steel bracelet decorated with black onyx plates, an unusually decorative bracelet treatment for a 1930s sports watch. Coat-of-arms Reversos from this decade are typically documented with plain leather straps; the onyx-plated bracelet here is a genuine rarity within that group. Source: Antiquorum cataloguing, 1930s 1930s ### [The “Wiener Cercle” Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/wiener-cercle-reverso) **Craft:** Polychrome enamel medallion**Made for:** A Vienna gentlemen’s club A yellow gold Reverso whose case-back carries an oval medallion reading “WIENER CERCLE” around a standing knight in armour bearing a flag — almost certainly the badge of a Vienna gentlemen’s club or circle (“cercle” being French for “circle” or club) active in the interwar period. One of a set of nine 1930s Reversos photographed together and published on page 78 of a Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage volume, in a chapter titled “In Praise of Craftsmanship,” captioned: “A fine collection of Reversos decorated with intricate, coloured coats of arms. All these examples date from the thirties.” Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage publication, “In Praise of Craftsmanship,” p.78 1930s ### [The “Sans Peur” Griffin Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/sans-peur-griffin-reverso) **Craft:** Polychrome enamel coat of arms**Made for:** Possibly Clan Sutherland, Scotland — not confirmed A steel Reverso whose case-back carries a red winged lion or griffin rampant on a pentagonal shield beneath a coronet, with a scrolled banner beneath reading “SANS PEUR” — French for “without fear.” That motto is best known as the war cry and clan motto of Clan Sutherland in Scotland, though the Sutherland crest badge is traditionally a wildcat rather than a griffin, so the match isn’t certain; “Sans Peur” has also been used as a motto by other families and regiments over the centuries. One of nine 1930s Reversos published together on page 78 of a Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage volume, “In Praise of Craftsmanship.” Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage publication, “In Praise of Craftsmanship,” p.78 1930s ### [The “HMS Victory” Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/hms-victory-reverso) **Craft:** Polychrome enamel badge**Made for:** Royal Navy — HMS Victory A steel Reverso decorated with a Royal Navy badge: a running horse on a red oval, ringed with the lettering “O·H·M·S” (On His Majesty’s Service) above and “VICTORY” below, a royal crown at the top and a laurel wreath beneath framing the initials “R·N.” The wording all but confirms a direct connection to HMS Victory, Nelson’s Trafalgar flagship, permanently berthed at Portsmouth and also the name used for the Royal Navy’s Portsmouth shore establishment through the twentieth century — making this one of nine 1930s Reversos published together on page 78 of a Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage volume that is, unusually, tied to a specific, identifiable institution rather than an unattributed family or club. Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage publication, “In Praise of Craftsmanship,” p.78 1930s ### [The House of Savoy Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/house-of-savoy-reverso) **Craft:** Polychrome enamel coat of arms**Made for:** Kingdom of Italy — House of Savoy A steel Reverso whose case-back carries a red shield bearing a white cross beneath a royal crown — the basic arms of the House of Savoy, adopted as the state arms of the Kingdom of Italy itself from unification in 1861 until the monarchy’s abolition in 1946. The shield sits inside a circular black-and-gold border carrying a repeating decorative or pseudo-lettered motif, in a style consistent with the collar of an Italian royal order (the Order of the Crown of Italy and the Military and Civil Orders of Savoy all used a red-and-white Savoy cross at their centre); which specific order, if any, isn’t confirmed from the photograph alone. One of nine 1930s Reversos published together on page 78 of a Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage volume, “In Praise of Craftsmanship.” Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage publication, “In Praise of Craftsmanship,” p.78 1930s ### [The A.S. Roma Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/a-s-roma-reverso) **Craft:** Polychrome enamel coat of arms**Made for:** Associazione Sportiva Roma — now in the Jaeger-LeCoultre museum A steel Reverso carrying the historic crest of A.S. Roma, the Italian football club founded in 1927: the Capitoline Wolf suckling Romulus and Remus on a yellow field in the shield’s upper half, and the intertwined gold monogram “ASR” (Associazione Sportiva Roma) on red in the lower half. This is specifically the illustrated 1934 version of the crest, the same shield-and-wolf design the club reintroduced in 1997 and again in 2025’s “progressive return” to its historic badge — making this one of the more confidently identifiable pieces in the group of nine 1930s Reversos published together on page 78 of a Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage volume, “In Praise of Craftsmanship.” A separate page of the same volume, showing this watch again on a tan leather strap, confirms it is now part of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own museum collection. Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage publication, “In Praise of Craftsmanship,” p.78 and facing page; club crest history confirmed via multiple club and press sources 1930s ### [The Crescent and Mullets Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/crescent-and-mullets-reverso) **Craft:** Polychrome enamel coat of arms**Made for:** Unidentified A steel Reverso whose case-back carries a crowned shield: a red band across the top bearing a crescent moon flanked by two mullets (heraldic stars), above a shield quartered diagonally in white and black, a small gold shield at its centre and a red lion in the lower field, with a scrolled ribbon beneath. Crescents and mullets together are a recurring device across a number of British family arms, but nothing in the source identifies which family or institution this specific combination belongs to. One of nine 1930s Reversos published together on page 78 of a Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage volume, “In Praise of Craftsmanship.” Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage publication, “In Praise of Craftsmanship,” p.78 1930s ### [The “Nec Timide Nec Tarde” Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/nec-timide-nec-tarde-reverso) **Craft:** Polychrome enamel coat of arms**Made for:** Unidentified A steel Reverso with a quartered shield alternating navy fields charged with gold rampant lions and red fields each charged with three silver bells, above a scrolled motto banner reading “NEC TIMIDE NEC TARDE” — roughly, “neither timidly nor slowly.” It closely echoes the better-documented Latin motto “Nec temere, nec timide” (“neither rashly nor timidly”), used historically by the town of Oswestry, the city of Gdańsk, and several British armigerous families including Bailey and Forbes — though none of those known arms match this specific lion-and-bell quartering, so the exact institution behind this version remains unconfirmed. One of nine 1930s Reversos published together on page 78 of a Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage volume, “In Praise of Craftsmanship.” Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage publication, “In Praise of Craftsmanship,” p.78 1930s ### [The “Fideliter” Herons Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/fideliter-herons-reverso) **Craft:** Polychrome enamel coat of arms**Made for:** Unidentified A steel Reverso with a shield divided into black-and-white lozenge-patterned quarters, three white herons or egrets standing in the upper and lower fields and three red roundels each centred with a white cinquefoil (five-petalled flower) across the middle band, above a scrolled banner reading “FIDELITER” — Latin for “faithfully.” “Fideliter” is a common heraldic motto used by numerous unrelated families and institutions, and herons are frequently used as canting (punning) charges for surnames like Heron or Herne, but nothing in the source narrows this to a specific one. One of nine 1930s Reversos published together on page 78 of a Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage volume, “In Praise of Craftsmanship.” Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage publication, “In Praise of Craftsmanship,” p.78 1930s ### [The “MJ” Monogram Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/mj-monogram-reverso) **Craft:** Engraved monogram, no colour**Made for:** Initials “MJ” A steel Reverso engraved simply with the interlocked initials “MJ” inside a hexagonal outline — no enamel, no colour, no heraldry. Included in the same photographed group as the eight coat-of-arms Reversos elsewhere in this archive specifically as a contrast: the accompanying book text discusses both monograms and coats of arms as period decoration techniques, and this piece represents the plainer of the two. One of nine 1930s Reversos published together on page 78 of a Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage volume, “In Praise of Craftsmanship,” which quotes an unnamed technical textbook’s rule for engraving of any kind: “but above all, it must be beautiful.” Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage publication, “In Praise of Craftsmanship,” p.78 1933 ### [The “Aéroclub Suisse de Bâle” Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/aeroclub-suisse-de-bale-reverso) **Craft:** Engraved emblem and lettering**Made for:** Presented to pilot Alphonse Kammacher A steel Reverso engraved with a winged “ACS” emblem and the word “BASEL” beneath — a gift from the Aéroclub Suisse de Bâle (the Swiss Aero Club’s Basel chapter) to its “meritorious pilot,” Alphonse Kammacher, in 1933. Per the same Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage volume that documents it, the watch also carried the inscription “Mit Dank für die Siege” (“With thanks for the victories”), and its presentation was accompanied by the battle cry “On a gagné” (“We won”) — a piece of triumphalism the book notes “raised some eyebrows” given the tense European political climate of the early 1930s. Remarkably, the book reports that Sirio Vernati, a member of that same winning team, still wore the watch decades later, at the time of the book’s writing. Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage publication, “In Praise of Craftsmanship” (facing page 78) — ### [The Heidelberg Vineyard Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/heidelberg-vineyard-reverso) **Craft:** Engraved coat of arms, matched to a physical object**Made for:** A vineyard owner near Heidelberg, Germany A yellow gold Reverso, on a brown leather strap, engraved with an ornate armorial figure — a robed, staff-bearing figure set within scrollwork and grape-vine motifs. Per Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own heritage volume, the owner, who ran a small vineyard near Heidelberg, had the engraving copied directly from the artistic heraldic decoration already carved into the iron door of an old oak wine barrel that was “the pride of his cellar” — a barrel bearing the maker’s name “Seeger,” a date reading “1855 … 1955” and “500 Jahr,” and a German rhyming inscription roughly translating to “drinking makes you cheerful, so drink wine with God, and you will be cheerful and blessed your whole life long.” The book frames this as a demonstration of the Reverso’s flexibility as a canvas: rather than a family coat of arms or a club badge, this owner chose to reproduce the specific decorative emblem of an object he prized in his own life. Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage publication (chapter on personalisation, facing the “Heraldry for Beginners” chapter) — ### [The Scherb Family Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/scherb-family-reverso) **Craft:** Engraved private coat of arms**Made for:** The Scherb family, Basel A two-tone gold Reverso, on a brown leather strap, engraved with a cormorant holding a fish in its beak — the private coat of arms of the Scherb family of Basel, per Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own heritage volume, in a chapter titled “Heraldry for Beginners.” The book explains the charge directly: the cormorant with a fish alludes to the family’s ancestral livelihood as fishermen on the Rhine. The same page illustrates the arms of the Vallée de Joux itself — combining a bear, a monk, and crossed weapons and keys, emblems typical of the municipalities in JLC’s own home valley — as a point of comparison between a civic coat of arms and a genuine private family one like the Scherbs’. Source: Jaeger-LeCoultre heritage publication, “Heraldry for Beginners,” p.72 1933 ### [The “Floreat Etona” Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/floreat-etona-reverso) **Craft:** Enamelled crest**Made for:** Unknown — an enduring mystery It bears the arms and motto of Eton College — *Floreat Etona*, “may Eton flourish”. And it is a ladies’ model. Eton admitted only male pupils, so the likeliest explanation is a gift from a pupil to a girlfriend, or a master to his wife. The archive has never established who owned it, which leaves open the far more romantic possibility the Yearbook itself entertains: that it belonged to the first female pupil at Eton, in the early 1930s. Source: JLC Yearbook FIVE, 2012 — “Reverso Confidential” 1934 ### [The Prince Aage of Denmark Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/prince-aage-of-denmark-reverso) **Craft:** Engraving**Made for:** Prince Aage of Denmark (1887–1940) The company archive holds a letter sent from Algiers in 1934 congratulating the maison on a Reverso that had withstood the conditions of southern Morocco. It was signed by a Danish prince who had traded a colonel’s commission in the Danish army for the French Foreign Legion, and who commanded legion corps in Morocco as *capitaine à titre étranger*. Proof, in the maison’s own files, that the Reverso was worn not only by sportsmen but by soldiers. Source: JLC Yearbook FIVE, 2012 1935 ### [The Amelia Earhart Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/amelia-earhart-reverso) **Craft:** Engraved map**Made for:** Commemorating Amelia Earhart Engraved with a map of the Americas and the words MEXICO – NEW YORK, MAY 8 1935. Earhart had flown 1,126 km across the Gulf of Mexico along the edge of the Bermuda Triangle, completing the first Mexico–New York flight in 13 hours and 5 minutes. Two years later she disappeared over the Pacific at the height of her fame. Source: JLC Yearbook FIVE, 2012 1936 ### [The “Maharani” Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/maharani-reverso) **Craft:** Miniature enamel portrait**Made for:** Probably Kanchan Prabha Devi The earliest documented enamelled Reverso: a yellow-gold case carrying a miniature enamel portrait of an Indian woman. It was bought in Mumbai by a Lufthansa captain during the 1990s and entered the manufacture’s own collection in 2004. Research across Indian and Swiss archives points to *Kanchan Prabha Devi* — born 1914, eldest daughter of the Maharaja of Panna, who on her seventeenth birthday became the second wife of the Maharaja of Tripura, a princely state near what is now the Bangladesh border. The identification has never been proved beyond doubt, and the watch remains the most enigmatic of the early Reversos. Source: Foulkes, *Reverso*; JLC Yearbook FIVE 1930s ### [The Maharaja of Jaipur Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/maharaja-of-jaipur-reverso) **Craft:** Engraved coat of arms**Made for:** Sawai Man Singh II of Jaipur Engraved with the arms of the Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II of Jaipur — moderniser of Rajasthan and a polo champion of international standing. Of all the personalised Reversos, this is the one that closes the circle most exactly: the watch invented on an Indian polo field, engraved for the man who was arguably the era’s greatest Indian polo player. LeCoultre calibre 410, steel. Source: JLC Yearbook FIVE, 2012 1937 ### [The British Racing Drivers’ Club Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/british-racing-drivers-club-reverso) **Craft:** Enamelled club emblem**Made for:** A BRDC member The BRDC was founded in 1928 over a series of legendary dinners hosted by Dr J.D. Benjafield, after he and Sammy Davis won the 1927 Le Mans 24 Hours in a wrecked Bentley — repaired by torchlight, headlights replaced with a hand torch. The club’s emblem shows the *Razor Blade*, at 47 cm the narrowest racing car of its day. The link runs deeper than decoration: Jaeger supplied dashboard instruments to Bugatti, Bentley, Maserati, Panhard and Aston Martin’s predecessor Bamford & Martin. Source: JLC Yearbook FIVE, 2012 1937 ### [The Edward VIII Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/edward-viii-reverso) **Craft:** Engraved royal arms**Made for:** King Edward VIII Engraved with a crown, EDWARD VIII and the date 1937 — the year of a coronation that never happened. The ceremony had been set for 12 May 1937, which explains both the date and the crown. Edward abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson; the watch was engraved anyway and still carries the trace of a dream of grandeur that gave way to a love story. Source: JLC Yearbook FIVE, 2012 1949 ### [The Rama Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/rama-reverso) **Craft:** Miniature enamel**Made for:** Unknown An enamelled miniature of the Hindu deity Rama — hero of the *Ramayana*, in whom some Indian scholars see the ancestor of the Western fairy-tale prince. Shown by the Victoria and Albert Museum from 2009 in *Maharaja: the Splendour of India’s Royal Courts*, and a reminder that the Reverso’s relationship with the subcontinent never really ended. Source: JLC Yearbook FIVE, 2012 2011 ### [The Reverso à Éclipses by Zep](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/reverso-a-eclipses-by-zep) **Craft:** Miniature enamel behind a shutter mechanism**Made for:** Pièce unique, sold for charity Made for the Reverso’s 80th anniversary and decorated by Philippe Chappuis — “Zep”, creator of the comic *Titeuf*. Turning a small wheel above the crown opens two shutters to reveal the drawing beneath: Titeuf climbing inside the watch’s gear train, the artist’s nod to Chaplin in *Modern Times*. The image was reproduced in miniature enamel by one of the manufacture’s own enamellers, more than eighty hours of work. It was sold at Artcurial in Paris on 29 November 2011, with the proceeds going to the Association Monégasque contre les Myopathies. Source: Artcurial, *Jaeger-LeCoultre Unique Auction*, Paris, 29 Nov 2011, lot 519 1938 ### [The Swiss national football team Reversos](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/swiss-national-football-team-reversos) **Craft:** Engraved dedication**Made for:** The 1938 Swiss World Cup squad Bought from the retailer Gübelin by the Swiss Football Association and presented to the national side after the 1938 World Cup in France. Switzerland’s win over the Germany side carried unmistakable political weight in the Europe of 1938, and the watches went out inscribed with thanks for the victories. Decades later at least one member of that team was still wearing his. A reminder that the engraved Reverso was never only an aristocratic object — it was also how a country said thank you. Source: Fritz, *Reverso: The Living Legend* 2010s ### [A Hidden Message](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/a-hidden-message-reverso) **Craft:** Hand-engraved Chinese poem**Made for:** Peter Lee, for his wife Yin Sze · Hong Kong SAR, China Peter Lee spent days perfecting a poem for his wife Yin Sze to mark their tenth anniversary, then walked into the Jaeger-LeCoultre boutique in Hong Kong and asked for the whole thing engraved on the case. Chinese poems are written vertically, in columns running top to bottom and ordered right to left. It reads: *“It is my honour to have you as my wife, I love your kindness, our lonely single days are at an end, and we shall live happily together ever after.”* But it works in two directions. Read horizontally, left to right, the top row says *“love you forever”* and the bottom row says *“Yin Sze, the wonderful wife”* — two more messages hidden inside the first, on a watch whose whole idea is that something is concealed until you turn it over. Source: Foulkes, *Reverso* 2010s ### [The Detail Is in the Dragon](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/detail-is-in-the-dragon-reverso) **Craft:** Hand engraving**Made for:** Juliano Cazarré · Brazil The Brazilian actor Juliano Cazarré had his favourite tattoo engraved on his Reverso: a tiger and a dragon, locked together. They are not decoration. They are his two eldest children — the tiger and the dragon are their signs in the Chinese horoscope. In his own words: *“These powerful animals are considered complementary opposites, and together form an unbeatable unit, and in that way they are just like my sons, so different from each other but inseparable in my love for them.”* Source: Foulkes, *Reverso* 2018 ### [A Father’s Treasure](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/a-fathers-treasure-reverso) **Craft:** Engraved from a child’s drawing**Made for:** Cho Hyunchul · Seoul, South Korea For his birthday in 2018, Cho Hyunchul’s five-year-old son Yoonjae painted his portrait — a round face, one eye larger than the other, a few strokes of hair. It meant enough that his father wanted it with him every day, so he had it engraved on the back of a Reverso Classic bought in Seoul that May, complete with the date and the words *“from YJ”* in the boy’s own hand. It is his most prized possession, and he is already planning to give it away: *“When my son is a grown man, and perhaps himself the father of his own family, I will give him the watch to remind him of the touching moment when he gave his father this wonderful birthday gift.”* Source: Foulkes, *Reverso* 1937 ### [The General Douglas MacArthur Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/general-douglas-macarthur-reverso) **Craft:** Engraved monogram in black lacquer**Made for:** Gen. Douglas MacArthur Five engraved letters — *D MAC A* — turn an otherwise typical 1930s steel Reverso into one of the most historically loaded watches the maison owns. In 2015 it became the most expensive Reverso ever sold at auction, bought by Jaeger-LeCoultre for its own museum after fierce bidding took it to almost nine times its low estimate. The craftsmanship is not exceptional and the black lacquer around the monogram is slightly chipped; it is the wrist it sat on that made the price. Source: Foulkes, *Reverso* (Jaeger-LeCoultre) 2010s ### [The Marchioness of Milford Haven Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/marchioness-of-milford-haven-reverso) **Craft:** Diamond-set night dial, engraved cradle**Made for:** Clare Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven A polo player and long-standing ambassador for the model, given a genuinely blank canvas to mark a decade of collaboration. A plain white dial on the front; flip it and the reverse is midnight blue with diamonds for stars. The personal engraving went somewhere unexpected — the inner face of the cradle that carries the case — and holds her children’s initials, a pair of crossed polo sticks, and a marquess’s coronet for her husband. Worn on a blue Casa Fagliano strap. Source: Foulkes, *Reverso* 1999 ### [The Giovanni Soldini Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/giovanni-soldini-reverso) **Craft:** Unique commissioned piece**Made for:** Giovanni Soldini, solo yachtsman A watch that commemorates a rescue at sea. In February 1999, during the third leg of the Around Alone solo round-the-world race, Soldini picked up a Mayday from Isabelle Autissier — the first woman to complete a solo competitive circumnavigation — whose boat had capsized. He turned back, found her, and took her aboard. He still won the race, in 116 days, and received the Legion of Honour from the French government for the rescue. Source: Foulkes, *Reverso* 2010s ### [The “Liverbird” Grande Reverso 1931 Rouge](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/liverbird-grande-reverso-1931-rouge) **Craft:** Engraving filled in red**Made for:** Xiaomo Xiong, collector A Chinese collector bought a Grande Reverso 1931 Rouge specifically in order to engrave it. The back carries the Liverbird, the phoenix-like symbol of the city of Liverpool and of Liverpool Football Club, engraved in the same red as the dial. He drew it himself on a computer and reshaped it to fit the case — a case-back designed by its own owner rather than by the atelier. Source: Foulkes, *Reverso* 2000s ### [The “Newport” Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/newport-reverso) **Craft:** Engraved horse’s head**Made for:** Mrs. Mazeaud, France A gift in yellow gold whose surprise lay on the reverse: the engraved head of Newport, an Anglo-Arab horse foaled in 1982 and the last bred by his owner before his death. Injured in transport and left lame, Newport was spared on the instructions of the owner’s son, who put him out to pasture in his father’s memory. The horse recovered fully, became French three-day-eventing champion in 1992, competed at the Barcelona Olympics, and took second in the team event at the 1997 European championships. Source: Foulkes, *Reverso* 2000s ### [The Nathalie Decoster Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/nathalie-decoster-reverso) **Craft:** Engraved message and artist’s emblem**Made for:** A gift for her seven-year-old son The French sculptor Nathalie Decoster had a Reverso engraved for her son at seven: *“My darling Louis, I love you madly”*, alongside her own emblem — a motif she calls “the passing of time”, which she describes as the symbol of all her work. He is grown now, and wears it every day. In her words, she never expected it would become so important to him: “Now I really see this Reverso as a gift for a lifetime.” Source: Foulkes, *Reverso* 2010s ### [The “Barbearia Corleone” Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/barbearia-corleone-reverso) **Craft:** Engraved emblem**Made for:** Bruno Van Enck, São Paulo The emblem of a chain of São Paulo barber shops modelled on 1940s New York — a moustached and bearded skull. The owner had it tattooed on himself to mark his first year in business, then had the same death’s head engraved on the back of his Reverso. Proof that the case-back tradition never belonged exclusively to princes and generals. Source: Foulkes, *Reverso* 2009 ### [The “Pavonia” Reverso](https://myreversostory.com/pieces-uniques/pavonia-reverso) **Craft:** Miniature enamel painting**Made for:** A British art collector A British collector asked the maison to reproduce, on his own Reverso, the painting he loved most in his collection: Frederic Leighton’s *Pavonia* (1858–59). Miklós Merczel of the Métiers Rares atelier had to reproduce it in under 6 cm² while keeping the lifelike vibrancy of the original. The name comes from the Latin *pavo*, peacock — for the feathers fanning behind the sitter’s hair. Source: JLC Yearbook FIVE, 2012 III 1990s – 2026  ·  limited artistic editions ## Artistic Editions Where the case-back became a gallery. Grand feu enamel, miniature painting, guillochage, paillonnage and gem-setting from the Métiers Rares atelier — usually ten pieces, occasionally twenty, never many. [2025  ·  3 piecesReverso Tribute Enamel “Xu Beihong”Three ink horses, each translated from a square metre of paper to two square centimetres of enamel.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/xu-beihong)[2018  ·  3 piecesReverso Tribute Enamel — Alfons MuchaThree of the four panels from Mucha’s “The Seasons” (1896), each framed in hand-engraved gold.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/alfons-mucha)[c.1990–early 2000s  ·  10 piecesReverso 101 “Les Folies”Time made small enough to become jewellery, and jewellery built to keep time.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/reverso-101-les-folies)[1999–2000  ·  4 piecesReverso Montre de Poche “Pierres Précieuses” — Alfons MuchaFour gemstone women from 1900, and the one time this whole enamel programme left the wrist entirely.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/mucha-precious-stones)[1996  ·  2 piecesReverso “Étoile du Matin et Clair de Lune” — Alfons MuchaMorning star and moonlight, both sides of the case enamelled — and, by the enameller’s own account, where his Reverso work began.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/mucha-etoile-clairdelune)[1999  ·  2 piecesReverso “Aurore et Crépuscule” — Alfons Mucha, 1999Dawn and dusk, painted in 1899, put back on the wrist for the turn of the following century.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/mucha-aurore-crepuscule)[1996  ·  4 piecesReverso “Four Seasons” — Alfons Mucha, 1996The set that started it all: Jaeger-LeCoultre’s first enamelled Reverso, and the only Reversos ever made with true enamel dials.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/mucha-four-seasons-1996)[2002  ·  2 piecesReverso “Émail Friedrich” — Caspar David FriedrichAn 8-day movement, two Romantic seascapes, and a technique Jaeger-LeCoultre had never used before.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/caspar-david-friedrich)[2000–2012  ·  5 piecesReverso / Arte PortuguesaFive Portuguese artists, twelve years, one watch each turned into a private commission.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/arte-portuguesa)[2018  ·  3 piecesReverso Tribute Enamel — Ferdinand HodlerThree Swiss lake landscapes, for the 100th anniversary of the painter’s death.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/hodler-tribute)[2018  ·  3 piecesReverso Tribute Enamel — Famous ArtistsThe trio that started it all — three painting techniques, none of them ever attempted in enamel miniature at Jaeger-LeCoultre before.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/famous-artists)[2022–  ·  4 piecesReverso Tribute Enamel — Chinese ZodiacA different animal each Lunar New Year, engraved into a background it was enamelled onto first.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/chinese-zodiac)[2021  ·  3 piecesReverso Tribute Enamel “Hidden Treasures”Three paintings that were all lost and found again.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/hidden-treasures)[2018 – 2026  ·  9 piecesReverso Tribute Enamel — HokusaiAn eight-year cycle: every waterfall Hokusai ever printed.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/hokusai)[2024  ·  3 piecesReverso Tribute Enamel “Venice Series” — MonetThree Monets, each shrunk from a metre wide to 25 × 20 mm.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/monet-venice)[2025  ·  4 piecesReverso Tribute Enamel “Turner Series”Venice again — but fifty years earlier, and through English eyes.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/turner-venice)[2025  ·  4 piecesReverso Tribute Enamel “Shahnameh”The Persian Book of Kings, in four miniatures.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/shahnameh)[2021 – 2024  ·  8 piecesReverso One “Precious Flowers”Three rare crafts at once, on a case-back the size of a stamp.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/precious-flowers)[2025  ·  3 piecesReverso One “Precious Colours”The colour-led companion to Precious Flowers.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/precious-colours)[2013–2021  ·  2 piecesReverso One Cordonnet JewelleryThe 1930s cord strap, remade in gold and diamonds.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/cordonnet-jewellery)[2026  ·  3 piecesReverso One “La Vallée des Merveilles”A new nature series — first stop, Hawaii and Japan.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/vallee-merveilles)[1990s–2023  ·  5 piecesReverso Secret NecklaceThe Reverso taken off the wrist entirely — twice over, decades apart.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/secret-necklace) IV 1990s – today  ·  35 entries ## Commemorative Editions Watches whose case-backs were decorated to mark something — a club, a city, a boutique opening, an anniversary. Not simply watches made in small numbers: a limited complication belongs on the [models page](https://myreversostory.com/models). What qualifies here is that the back was given a meaning. [2021 & 2023  ·  8 piecesJaeger-LeCoultre × MR PORTER — City EditionsEight cities, eight engraved skylines — sold only through MR PORTER.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/mrporter-cities)[2023–  ·  22 piecesThe Collectibles — Reverso Across Every CapsuleEvery Reverso the maison has quietly resurfaced through its own certified pre-owned programme.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/collectibles-capsule)[2006–  ·  24 piecesReverso à ÉclipsesThe one Reverso family that put the art on the dial instead of the case-back — hidden behind a shutter, so you decide when to look.View the full set](https://myreversostory.com/series/reverso-a-eclipse) 2016 ### Reverso in tribute to René Magritte — Series 1, “La Trahison des images” **Run:** 5 in white gold, 15 in steel**Marks:** Artist tribute · Maison De Greef, Brussels Five years in the making, and it began as a conversation in a Brussels jeweller’s shop. Charly Herscovici, president of the Magritte Foundation, was a long-standing customer of Maison De Greef — the oldest jeweller in Belgium, run by the same family since 1848 — and one day the talk with Jacques Wittmann turned to a watch Magritte himself would not have disowned. The result marks two anniversaries at once: the Reverso’s 85th in 2016, and the 50th of Magritte’s death in 2017. The case-back carries a lacquered engraving of *The Treachery of Images* (1929) — the pipe beneath the schoolchild’s handwriting reading “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”. Design director Janek Deleskiewicz admitted the flat, absolutely even colour was “a real challenge”. Five pieces in white gold as the Grande Reverso Ultra Thin 1931, fifteen in steel as the Tribute to 1931. 2017 ### Reverso in tribute to René Magritte — Series 2, “L’Oiseau de Ciel” **Run:** 33 pieces**Ref:** Q3828420**Marks:** Artist tribute · Maison De Greef, Brussels The second of a planned triptych. A Reverso Classic Large in steel whose reverse carries a miniature of Magritte’s *L’Oiseau de Ciel* (1966) — the silhouette of a dove filled with clouds, its blue picked up by the numerals on the dial. The edition size is the quiet joke: thirty-three pieces, for 1833, the year the manufacture was founded. A third series was promised within two years. — ### Reverso Grande Taille “Juventus 100th” **Run:** 100 pieces**Ref:** 270.3.62 (also seen as 275.3.62)**Marks:** Club centenary · Italy Made for the centenary of Juventus F.C., in white gold for the Italian market. Reference discrepancy worth resolving: sources give both 270.3.62 and 275.3.62. — ### Reverso Grande Taille “Torino F.C. 100th” **Run:** 25 pieces**Ref:** 270.2.62**Marks:** Club centenary · Italy The other Turin club, in pink gold — and far rarer than the Juventus edition at twenty-five pieces against a hundred. Together the two record a city’s footballing rivalry on the back of the same watch. — ### Reverso GT “Darren Romanelli — 75th Anniversary” **Run:** 50 pieces**Ref:** 270.8.62**Marks:** Anniversary collaboration · Colette, Paris A collaboration with the American designer Darren Romanelli marking the Reverso’s 75th anniversary, sold through the Paris concept store Colette — an unusually streetwear-adjacent partner for a house like this, and only fifty pieces. 2017 ### Reverso Tribute to Piet Mondriaan — De Stijl / Steltman centenary **Run:** 25 pieces**Marks:** Double centenary · The Hague Commissioned to mark two Dutch hundredths at once: the founding of the art movement *De Stijl* in Leiden in 1917, and the founding of the Hague jeweller Steltman the same year. The front gives nothing away — a standard Reverso Classic Large Small Second in steel, calibre 822/2, with no mention of Mondriaan, De Stijl or Steltman anywhere on the dial. Turn it over and there is a hand-painted miniature of Mondriaan’s 1921 *Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue*. The Métiers Rares atelier had to invent a new technique for it: De Stijl demands dead-straight lines and flat, absolutely even fields of single colour, which miniature enamel painting does not naturally produce. Each miniature is kiln-dried and sealed under colourless varnish, and because each is painted by hand every watch is subtly unique. Sold only at Steltman in The Hague. 2015 ### Grande Reverso Ultra Thin 1931 “London Edition” **Run:** 26 pieces**Ref:** Q278853L**Marks:** Boutique opening · London Made to mark the opening of the Bond Street boutique and sold only there, in person, to selected clients — 26 pieces in all. It sold out before reaching the wider market. — ### Grande Reverso Ultra Thin “Tribute to 1931” New York Skyline **Run:** 3 pieces**Marks:** Boutique opening · New York Very possibly the rarest Reverso of the modern era: three pieces, each with the New York skyline on the case-back. The design was lifted from an advertisement Jaeger-LeCoultre ran in *The New Yorker* to announce a boutique opening — an advertisement turned into an engraving turned into a watch. 2011 ### Reverso in the colours of AC Milan **Run:** For club managers, coaches and players**Marks:** Club partnership · Italy Made by the Métiers Rares craftsmen for the managers, coaches and players of AC Milan, in the club’s red and black. Announced by Adriano Galliani, then the club’s Executive Vice President and CEO, who noted the shared ground between the two houses — the club was 112 years old at the time, the manufacture had been running since 1833. Alongside the team pieces, an individually personalised Reverso was made for Galliani himself. 2012 ### Grande Reverso Ultra Thin Tribute to “Mad Men” **Run:** 25 pieces**Marks:** Television · Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Twenty-five pieces, each with the fictional Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce logo engraved on the case-back beside its edition number. Steel, heritage dial, calibre 822. The partnership was real rather than a licensing deal: show creator Matthew Weiner had put a vintage JLC Memovox on Don Draper’s wrist from season one, and a Reverso Classique later — and JLC’s North American president Philippe Bonay set just two rules for the edition, a very small run and a model true to the period. Each watch shipped in a walnut box with the agency logo, and a letter written in character as Roger Sterling. 2016 ### Grande Reverso 1931 Seconde Centrale “Wakaya” **Run:** Special edition, presented rather than sold at retail**Ref:** 278.3.66 (Q381357J)**Marks:** Personal commission · Fiji A white gold Reverso 1931 Seconde Centrale, its case-back engraved and enamelled with the logo of The Wakaya Club & Spa and the initials of David H. Gilmour beneath it. Gilmour, a Canadian-born entrepreneur, bought the small private island of Wakaya in Fiji and opened the Club there in 1990 on a former coconut plantation — eight suites that drew guests including Tom Cruise, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Keith Richards. Noticing his guests preferred imported Swiss water, he traced a silica-rich aquifer beneath Viti Levu’s volcanic highlands and in 1996 launched Fiji Natural Artesian Water, which went on to become the second-best-selling imported bottled water in the United States after San Pellegrino. This watch, case No. 3’033’453, automatic calibre 966A, was presented to Gilmour personally rather than sold through the ordinary retail run. 1997 ### Reverso “Helvetia” **Run:** 150 pieces**Ref:** 250.340.867 H**Marks:** National anniversary · Switzerland Made for the 150th anniversary of the Swiss Confederation: an 18k white gold Reverso Classic with a black dial, painted silver Roman numerals, dauphine hands, and manual-wound calibre 846. Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own certificate of authenticity, dated Le Sentier, 3 March 1997, describes it precisely: the watch “is part of a unique and limited series of 150 pieces produced by the Manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre in Switzerland,” and “the back of the 18ct solid gold reversible case is decorated with a special engraving, which commemorates the 150 years of the Swiss Confederation” — the Swiss flag, engraved into the case-back beside the serial number. 1995 ### Reverso “Geneva Fountain” **Run:** 50 pieces — 30 yellow gold, 20 white gold**Ref:** 257.342.626 (yellow gold) / 270.3.62 (white gold)**Marks:** City edition · Geneva A white or yellow gold Reverso with small seconds and a clean guilloché dial on the front; the reverse carries an engraved skyline of Geneva — the Jet d’Eau fountain and the Cathedral of St. Pierre — set with 40 diamonds (0.16 ct total). Twenty examples were made in white gold, thirty in yellow, fifty in total. — ### Grande Reverso Night & Day “Rio de Janeiro” **Run:** 85 pieces**Ref:** Q380848M**Marks:** Landmark anniversary · Brazil A double anniversary: 85 pieces for the 85th anniversary of both Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue and the Reverso itself. Stainless steel, automatic calibre 967B, blue dial with a 24-hour day/night indicator at six; the case-back carries a solid engraving of the statue. 46.8 × 27.4 mm, 9.1 mm thick, 42-hour reserve. 2015 ### Grande Reverso Night & Day “Singapore SG50” **Run:** 50 pieces**Ref:** Q3808420**Marks:** National anniversary · Singapore Marking 50 years of Singapore’s independence (1965–2015): steel case, silver-toned guilloché Clous de Paris dial, blued baton hands and a blue day/night indicator. The case-back carries a map of Singapore filled in red and white lacquer — the flag’s colours — with “1965–2015” beneath it and no individual edition numbering. Automatic calibre 967B, 46.8 × 27.4 mm, sold only at the Jaeger-LeCoultre boutiques at ION Orchard and Marina Bay Sands. — ### Reverso 1931 “King Rama IX of Thailand” **Run:** 39 pieces**Ref:** Q380841G**Marks:** Royal tribute · Thailand Thirty-nine pieces — 3 for the colours of the Thai flag, 9 for Rama IX, the ninth king of the Chakri dynasty, who died in 2016 after a 70-year reign. A deep yellow dial in his royal colour reads as “dawn”; the case-back is engraved with Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn. Automatic calibre 967B, 42-hour reserve, railway minute track with Art Deco markers around the day/night indicator. 2016 ### Grande Reverso 976 “25th Anniversary of Kuwait” **Run:** 25 pieces**Ref:** 278.2.56**Marks:** National anniversary · Kuwait Rose gold, marking the 25th anniversary of Kuwait’s 1991 liberation at the end of the Gulf War. A green dial with vertical guilloché in the centre carries scarlet red numerals at 2 and 5 o’clock — spelling out “25” across the dial — alongside sober Arabic numerals and sword hands, echoing the Kuwaiti flag. Self-winding calibre 967B, 200 parts, 42-hour reserve. Issued alongside a steel sibling (278.8.56) marking Kuwait’s 55th National Day the same year. 2016 ### Grande Reverso 976 “55th Anniversary of Kuwait” **Run:** 55 pieces**Ref:** 278.8.56**Marks:** National anniversary · Kuwait The steel counterpart to the 25th Anniversary rose gold piece above, marking Kuwait’s 55th National Day (55 years since independence from British protection in 1961) rather than the Gulf War liberation. Same green dial and flag-colour logic, but here a single scarlet red “55” replaces the ‘5’ at five o’clock. 46 × 27 × 9 mm, self-winding calibre 967B, delivered with three straps including two by Casa Fagliano. 2011 ### Grande Reverso Ultra Thin “Italica” **Run:** 150 pieces per metal**Ref:** 277.8.62 (steel) / 277.1.62 (rose gold)**Marks:** National anniversary · Italy For the 150th anniversary of Italian unification (and close to the Reverso’s own 80th): the thinnest Grande Reverso line at the time, 7.2 mm, manual calibre 822 (134 parts in 2.94 mm of height). The silvered dial’s hour markers print in red, and the numeral ‘8’ is replaced by a red ‘R’ — the Roman numeral for 80, the Reverso’s age that year. Issued in steel and rose gold; sources disagree on the exact split, with one account giving 150 pieces of each metal and another giving 150 steel to 50 rose gold. 2011 ### Grande Reverso 976 “Guillermo Ceniceros” **Run:** 50 pieces steel · 10 pieces rose gold**Ref:** Q373847M (steel) / Q373247M (rose gold)**Marks:** Artist collaboration · Mexico For the Reverso’s 80th anniversary and the opening of Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Mexico City boutique in Polanco, the manufacture invited Mexican muralist, painter and engraver Guillermo Ceniceros — born 1939 in El Salto, Durango, and a member of David Alfaro Siqueiros’s mural team — to use the Reverso’s case-back as a canvas. The steel version (50 pieces) depicts “man’s duality from a modernistic perspective” in engraving and lacquer; the rose gold version (10 pieces) shows “man in motion,” engraved directly into the gold. Both share the same Grande Reverso 976 base: 48.5 × 30 mm, manual calibre 976 (151 parts, 19 jewels, 48-hour reserve), a black vertically guilloché Clous de Paris dial, and vintage-orange numerals and hands on a black alligator strap. 2014 ### Reverso “Les Magritte du Cinéma 2014” **Run:** Presentation pieces, not a numbered retail edition**Marks:** Award presentation · Brussels Not a commercial edition but an award piece: the case-back engraved “LES MAGRITTE DU CINÉMA 2014” in the ceremony’s own colours, presented to Best Actor Benoît Poelvoorde (for *Une place sur la terre*) and Best Actress Pauline Étienne (for *La Religieuse*) at the fourth Magritte Awards — Belgium’s French-language film prize, organised by the Académie André Delvaux since 2011 and named, like the René Magritte enamel Reversos elsewhere in this archive, after the painter, though the two projects are unrelated. That year’s honorary award went to director Emir Kusturica, who received a matching personalised Atmos clock rather than a watch — confirmed by period photographs of Kusturica holding the Atmos beside Étienne holding her Reverso at the partners’ dinner in Brussels. 2014 ### Grande Reverso “OSESP 60 Anos” **Run:** 50 watches reported (steel and gold)**Marks:** Fundraising partnership · Brazil Engraved “60 ANOS OSESP 2014” — the circular anniversary logo at left can read as the letters “SESP” at a glance — for the 60th anniversary of the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, founded 1954. Fifty Grande Reversos were made and sold to fund roughly 70% of the cost of OSESP’s free Sunday-morning concerts at Sala São Paulo, reported at the time as reaching some 40,000 people; contemporary Brazilian pricing ran around R$28,000 in steel and R$57,000 in gold, though the exact split between metals across the 50 watches isn’t documented. The partnership extended beyond the watch: Jaeger-LeCoultre took on the roughly R$18,000 annual maintenance cost of the monumental public clock at Praça Júlio Prestes, the historic railway station that houses Sala São Paulo, and proposed restoring its long-closed interior clock room — timekeeping, music, and a public building tied together in one sponsorship. 1995 ### Reverso Grande Taille “Batman Forever” **Run:** 35 pieces (30 steel, 5 yellow gold) — not for sale**Ref:** 270.8.62**Marks:** Film promotion · Warner Bros. Made alongside *Batman Forever*, Val Kilmer’s 1995 turn as the character: a black bat-symbol on the case-back with “FOREVER” in white capitals running through it, on the Grande Taille introduced four years earlier for the Reverso’s 60th anniversary. None of the 35 watches — 30 steel, 5 in 18k yellow gold — were ever sold; they went to cast, crew, and promotional or charity use, including at least one example shown at the 1998 Carousel of Hope Ball silent auction for the Children’s Diabetes Foundation. Only the first example is confirmed to remain in Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own collection, occasionally shown at watch events; most of the other 34 have never resurfaced. Manual calibre 822, 21 jewels. 2012 ### Grande Reverso Ultra Thin Tribute to 1931 “The Dark Knight Rises” **Run:** 10 pieces — not for sale**Ref:** 277.8.62**Marks:** Film promotion · Warner Bros. Seventeen years after the Batman Forever edition, Jaeger-LeCoultre returned to the character for the conclusion of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy: a black Bat-Shield engraved and lacquered onto the case-back of a Grande Reverso Ultra Thin Tribute to 1931, visible only when the case is flipped. In the film, Bruce Wayne wears a Reverso Grande Date on-screen. Ten steel examples were made — reportedly for Warner Bros. executives involved in the production, along with Nolan himself — and a wider commercial release was apparently planned but never happened, leaving these ten the only examples that exist. Jaeger-LeCoultre displayed the original Reverso in its Geneva, London, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong boutiques around the film’s July 2012 release. 2010 ### Reverso GT Email “Chemin de la Vérité” (The Path of Truth) **Run:** 8 pieces**Marks:** Artistic miniature · Métiers Rares A yellow gold Grande Taille enamel Reverso reproducing a miniature painting titled “The Path of Truth,” limited to eight pieces. Beyond the subject, edition size, and metal, little further detail on this piece has surfaced — it doesn’t appear in Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own major press announcements for the better-documented enamel tribute series, suggesting it may have been a smaller, quieter release. 1997 ### Reverso “Greater China” Special Edition **Run:** 97 pieces**Ref:** 270.8.62**Marks:** National commemoration · Hong Kong handover Made to mark the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from British to Chinese sovereignty: a steel Reverso whose case-back is engraved and enamelled in yellow, red, and black with a map of Greater China. The colour-coding carries real content — yellow for mainland Chinese territories, red for the wider autonomous regions (Guangxi, Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia), and black for the major cities and special administrative regions (Hong Kong, Macao, Shanghai, Tianjin, Beijing). Ninety-seven pieces, accompanied by dual English and Chinese certificates of authenticity. 2005 ### Reverso Grande Automatique, Royal Windsor Horse Show **Run:** 5 pieces**Ref:** Q3038120**Marks:** Equestrian sponsorship · United Kingdom A steel automatic dual-time Reverso with date, made for the Royal Windsor Horse Show — fitting sponsorship territory for a watch whose case shape traces back to 1930s polo players. Limited to five pieces, an unusually small run even by this archive’s standards. 1996 ### “Orgueil du Valais” (Pride of Valais) **Run:** 65 pieces**Ref:** 250386**Marks:** Anniversary edition · Swiss regional Made alongside the 65th Anniversary piece above, for the same 1996 milestone — the Reverso’s manufacture sits in the Vallée de Joux, within the canton of Vaud bordering Valais, and this white gold example’s case-back is engraved with the Matterhorn (Mont Cervin), the peak that has come to symbolise the Valais region and Switzerland itself internationally. Blue dial with painted silver Roman numerals. Sixty-five pieces, first sold in September 1999. 2016 ### Ultra Thin Grand Reverso “Tribute to St Barth” **Run:** 15 pieces**Ref:** 277.2.62**Marks:** Resort / island edition · Saint Barthélemy A pink gold Ultra Thin Grand Reverso made for the French Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy, in the same spirit as other single-location commemorative Reversos elsewhere in this archive (Wakaya, the various MR PORTER cities) — fifteen pieces, an especially small run even among boutique-exclusive editions. — ### Grande Reverso Ultra Thin Tribute to 1931 “Dubai Expo” **Run:** Unknown, likely small**Marks:** World’s Fair commemoration · United Arab Emirates A steel Ultra Thin Tribute to 1931 made to mark Expo 2020 Dubai (delayed to 2021–22 by the pandemic) — one of relatively few Reverso editions tied to a World’s Fair rather than a national anniversary, sporting event, or retailer milestone. 2003 ### Reverso Grande Taille Enamel “Ferrari” **Run:** Unknown, likely small**Ref:** 276.1.62**Marks:** Automotive partnership · Italy A yellow gold Grande Taille whose case-back is enamelled with Ferrari’s prancing horse rather than a painting or landscape — the same case reference used elsewhere in this archive for the 1996 Mucha Four Seasons and 1999 Aurore/Crépuscule sets, here repurposed for a corporate rather than artistic commission. 2025 ### Reverso Tribute “YPO” **Run:** 38 pieces steel · 12 pieces pink gold**Marks:** Members’ edition · YPO Made for YPO, the global network of chief executives, and ordered through its members, with orders closing on 1 January 2025. A Reverso Tribute with small seconds in the 45.6 × 27.4 mm case: a silver dial in steel, and a choice of silver or black dial in pink gold. The case back carries the globe, for a group that spans the world, as an enamelled world map, in blue or black, over an engraved field of triangles, the pattern of the YPO emblem. Collectors could choose between two versions of the case-back design. Thirty-eight were made in steel and twelve in pink gold; orders are thought to have been closed before the edition was filled. The cards above are the ones whose case-backs were decorated. Many more Reversos were made in limited numbers with special dials, for particular markets and retailers, without a personalised back — those are catalogued separately. [See the full list of limited editions](https://myreversostory.com/limited-editions) Add Yours ## The stories aren't finished. If your Reverso carries an engraving, an enamel, a monogram — or just a story about how it reached you — it belongs in the first chapter above. [Share Your Story](https://myreversostory.com/#submit)