What is the Reverso?

The Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso is a rectangular wristwatch whose case slides out of its cradle and turns over 180 degrees, hiding the glass behind a solid steel back. It was patented in Paris on 4 March 1931, for polo players in British India.

By the My Reverso Story curators · Updated 30 September 2026

Key facts

Why the Reverso turns over

The Reverso exists because watch glass broke. Travelling through India in the winter of 1930–31, the Swiss businessman César de Trey met British army officers for whom polo was a way of life, and whose watch crystals rarely survived a match.

Mineral glass was standard then, and it shattered. The officers asked whether a watch could be covered, or even turned over, to protect the glass during a game. The answer was a case that could be flipped face-down, leaving only a blank metal back exposed.

The Reverso's own story comes back to that field: in 2025 Jaeger-LeCoultre returned to it with a “1931 Polo Club” theme, and the Tribute Duoface Fagliano of 2016 carries straps from the Argentine polo bootmaker Casa Fagliano.

Who invented the Reverso

René-Alfred Chauvot, a French designer, invented the slide-and-flip mechanism. The project was brought by César de Trey, who registered the name Reverso himself, and taken up by Jacques-David LeCoultre and the Paris firm of Edmond Jaeger, which had worked with LeCoultre in Le Sentier for years.

To sell the watch, de Trey and LeCoultre founded a distribution company in Lausanne, Spécialités Horlogères. In June 1937 it became the sales arm of the newly merged manufacture, Jaeger-LeCoultre.

The first Reversos did not run on a LeCoultre movement. Nothing LeCoultre made fitted the rectangle, so the earliest watches used the Tavannes calibre 064, often signed “Lisica”, in cases by the Geneva maker A.E. Wenger. LeCoultre's own rectangular movements, the calibres 410 and 411, arrived in 1933.

What the name Reverso means

Reverso is Latin for “I turn around”. It describes the watch's one defining action: the case turns to show either its dial or its back.

How the Reverso case works

The watch has two parts. The cradle is the frame fixed to the strap; the case slides out of it and swivels over. On the original watch it slid free on two spring-loaded studs.

Between the patent and the first production watches the case grew longer, and three stepped ribs, the gadroons (godrons), were added above and below the dial. They remain the Reverso's signature; the squarer Reverso II of 1982–83 is almost the only Reverso made without them.

From 1985 the case was re-engineered from the inside without changing its outline. A skid system replaced the original pin in a groove, a guard ring holding the movement was sealed to the case, and the Reverso became water-resistant for the first time. The 1931 case had about 30 parts; the 1985 case has more than 50.

The second face: from armour to canvas

The back was engineered only to take a hit. Owners soon saw a canvas in it, and the second face became the most personal part of the watch. Pieces in this archive trace how quickly that happened:

• 1933 — a Reverso engraved to commemorate Italo Balbo's transatlantic formation flight: the Balbo Reverso.
• 1934 — Prince Aage of Denmark's Reverso, which he wrote had survived southern Morocco with the French Foreign Legion.
• 1935 — a back engraved with a map reading MEXICO–NEW YORK: the Amelia Earhart Reverso.
• 1936 — the first documented enamel, a portrait believed to show a maharani: the “Maharani” Reverso.
• 1937 — a crown, the name EDWARD VIII and the date of a coronation that never took place: the Edward VIII Reverso.

Every case still leaves the workshop with a blank back. How owners fill it today is the subject of the engraving guide and of the 43 collector stories in this archive.

From one watch to a collection

1. 1931 — patent filed; first series on the Tavannes 064.
2. 1933 — LeCoultre's own calibres 410 and 411.
3. 1937 — Jaeger and LeCoultre merge into Jaeger-LeCoultre.
4. c.1948 — production of the vintage Reverso ends; the watch leaves the catalogue for more than twenty years.
5. 1972 — the Italian distributor Giorgio Corvo buys 200 forgotten steel cases, has them fitted with an oval movement, and sells them out in a month.
6. 1975 — back in the catalogue; relaunched in 1982–83 for the manufacture's 150th anniversary.
7. 1985 — the re-engineered, water-resistant case.
8. 1991 — the 60ème: the first complication and the first sapphire display back, and the larger Grande Taille case.
9. 1994 — the Duoface, and the world's first rectangular minute repeater movement.
10. 2006 — the Grande Complication à Triptyque, the first watch with three dials driven by one movement.
11. 2016 — the line-up is reset into three families: Classic, Tribute and One.
12. 2021 — the Hybris Mechanica Calibre 185 Quadriptyque, with four working faces.
13. 2025 — world time returns, and a new minute repeater movement earns seven patents.

The full account is on the history page; every documented model, era by era, is on the models page.

Monoface, Duoface and Duetto

A Monoface Reverso has one dial and a solid back. A Duoface, introduced in 1994, has a second dial on the back showing a second time zone, both driven by the same single movement. The Duetto of 1997 applied the idea to the women's Reverso: a discreet dial for day on the front and a more decorative one for evening on the back.

The Reverso families today

At SIHH 2016 Jaeger-LeCoultre replaced a fragmented line-up with three families, and almost everything sold since descends from that reset:

• Reverso Classic — the modern entry point, in three sizes, each as Monoface, Duoface or Duetto.
• Reverso Tribute — the heritage tier, closest in detail to the 1930s watches, with in-house calibres.
• Reverso One — a slim women's line in a 2:1 rectangle, echoing the narrow ladies' Reversos of the 1930s.

Above them sit the high complications of Hybris Mechanica, the artistic Hybris Artistica pieces, and the enamel and engraving of the Métiers Rares atelier. 117 limited, market and anniversary editions are listed on the limited editions page.

The movements inside the Reverso

Around fifty calibres have been made for the Reverso since 1931, each shaped to a watch that has to work upside down and back to front. A few mark the line's history:

• Tavannes 064 (1931) — the bought-in movement of the first series.
• Calibre 822 (1991) — built for the Grande Taille case and still the workhorse behind many models, including the enamel Tributes.
• Calibre 101 (1929) — the smallest mechanical movement ever put into series production, used in jewellery Reversos.
• Calibre 185 (2021) — the most complicated movement ever fitted to a Reverso.
• Calibres 953 and 834 (2025) — a new minute repeater, and world time in a rectangle.

All 37 documented here, chapter by chapter, are on the calibres page.

Common questions

More answers are on the Reverso FAQ; terms such as grand feu, gadroon and pièce unique are defined in the glossary.

My Reverso Story is an independent collector archive, not affiliated with Jaeger-LeCoultre. Facts on this page are drawn from the archive's history, models and calibres pages, which cite their sources entry by entry. References and piece counts vary by market and source.