A Brown Dial from 1933

This 1933 Reverso Small Seconds, Ref. 201, represents a very different aspect of what attracts me to collecting Reversos: discovering how remarkably modern the model already was in its earliest years.

The watch was selected by Jaeger-LeCoultre for the first edition of The Collectibles in 2023, the Manufacture’s own program dedicated to sourcing, restoring, and offering important vintage pieces from its history. Powered by the rectangular manual-wound Calibre 410, it is housed in stainless steel and features a beautiful chocolate-brown dial.

The dial is what makes this example particularly fascinating to me. During the early 1930s, when white and silver dials dominated watchmaking, LeCoultre & Cie was already experimenting with much bolder colors. Alongside black, Reverso dials in brown, red, and blue could be ordered only upon request, making surviving examples considerably rarer.

To see such a rich brown dial on a watch produced in 1933 feels surprisingly contemporary, even more than ninety years later. It demonstrates that the Reverso was never simply an Art Deco watch of its time; from the beginning, it was also a platform for individuality.

For me, the value of this piece lies in that connection between originality and history. It is a watch whose rarity was not created as a limited edition, but happened naturally from an individual choice made by its original owner nearly a century ago.