Jaeger-LeCoultre Tribute to Deep Sea Diving Alarm: Blast From the Past

• • Vintage dive watches are red-hot on collector markets.

• • Luxury watchmakers are reissuing their icons from the 1950s dive watch “golden age.”

• • Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Tribute to Deep Sea is a faithful recreation of the 1959 original.

• • The first “diving alarm,” Deep Sea combined the dive watch with an air-supply timer.

• • This example is the coveted “Euro Dial”; only 959 were built to commemorate the original.

Vintage dive watches have been driving the luxury watch collector markets for the better part of two decades.

To the watch enthusiast community at large, vintage divers are like the 1960s muscle cars of the watch world; old school cool, butch, and coveted for it.

And just as Ford, Chevrolet, and Chrysler have launched a winning streak on the backs of pony car re-issues, the luxury maisons that dominated the 1953-1960 dive watch golden age have been quick to capitalize on collector trends.

With the Jaeger-LeCoultre Tribute to Deep Sea, JLC of Le Sentier, Switzerland becomes the latest top-shelf watchmaker to issue a lovingly recreated modern iteration of a hallowed reference from its back catalog.

Tribute watches run the gamut from loose interpretations (e.g., the 2007-present Blancpain Fifty Fathoms) to meticulous recreations that go so far as to reconstitute the flaws of the original (PAM00021, I’m looking at you).

JLC’s Tribute to Deep Sea sits firmly in the literal end of the spectrum.

As with the 1959 original, the defining feature of the Tribute to Deep Sea is its unique diving alarm. By 1959, the eight-year-old JLC Memovox alarm wristwatch had become a signature of the company’s model line and the flagship of its mainstrean U.S. range; efforts to integrate the system into as many models as possible were driven in equal measure by practical and marketing considerations.

And JLC was playing catch-up.

The dive watch boom of the 1950s caught many brands off-guard, and while brands as illustrious as Rolex and obscure as Enicar moved quickly to capitalize on the explosion of interest in amateur diving, JLC hesitated. By ’59, virtually every major rival had launched a dive watch, and the market was saturated.

A diving alarm was JLC’s imaginative solution.

By integrating the Caliber 815 Memovox movement in to a large 39.5mm case, JLC created a highly visible underwater tool equipped with the ultimate fail-safe reminder to avoid out-diving one’s air supply. While more of a vibration than an alarm on the surface, JLC’s “cricket” alarm function created a powerful sonic safeguard in any aqueous environment.

Between 1959 and 1962, 1061 examples of the original were produced.

The Tribute to Deep Sea captures every detail of the original with startling fidelity.

Right off the bat, JLC nails the Euro/US design dichotomy by issuing the Tribute in two distinct dial designs. Original Deep Sea Alarm watches were issued in two series with dramatically different dial designs for North American and Old World consumers.

The JLC-signed European variant is considered to be the more elegant of the two, and its Tribute counterpart upholds this legacy.

With a large flat bezel and high-contrast tones, the European dial Tribute presents a striking image of workmanlike utility. This is a watch that exudes authenticity from its minimally-cluttered “corn kernel” indexes to its domed acrylic crystal.

Even the tone and volume of the alarm is of time capsule quality; the gentle beat of the JLC caliber 956 alarm is more of a gentle reminder than the duck-and-cover air raid alert of today’s JLC Memovox models.

The Tribute’s incorporation of a 1950s-style thermoplastic crystal imparts the same nostalgic light refraction seen in true vintage luxury divers.

The particular distortion of light through an acrylic lens is evocative of mid-century aquatic escapism: images of Cousteau, James Bond in Thunderball, the dogged treasure hunter Mel Fisher, and even old clips from “Flipper” flash before the mind’s eye while pondering the Deep Sea.

A simulated patina-look characterizes the luminova material on the watch face. Vintage watches lose their luminescent glow as radium or tritium ages, but the resulting browned “dirty dial” patina is both endearing and highly sought; collectors favor original faded dials with this effect.

JLC’s European dial Tribute to Deep Sea combines the best of both worlds by employing modern lume material that functions while exhibiting the coveted vintage look of an original 1959 Deep Sea.

Significantly, the U.S.-variant, which is signed “LeCoultre Deep Sea Alarm,” does not feature luminescent indexes and goes dark after nightfall. While true to history, it’s not terribly convenient. Advantage, Euro-dial.

On the caseback, the Tribute to Deep Sea features the same engraved image of a mid-century diver complete with goggles and vintage-style rebreather.

Ponder the Deep Sea while basking in its vintage vibe, and the experience is redolent of old National Geographic volumes complete with faded pastel-tone images of far-flung Bali, Pacific atolls, and Roman wrecks in the Med.

That era may have been the last time the world seemed vast, endless, and mysterious to the popular imagination. Glance at the Tribute to Deep Sea for a moment, and you’re there.

And it will be a collectible in its own right; JLC issued only 959 Euro dials and 359 U.S. variants of the Tribute for a production total of 1,318. Exclusivity is assured.

The Tribute to Deep Sea combines the classic style of an original that now fetches $40,000 USD in collector circles, but the new model suffers none of the usage constraints or exorbitant operating costs of the true vintage Deep Sea.

For collectors and connoisseurs of Jaeger-LeCoultre, the good old days are now.