Lecoultre 8 day Memovox desk clock ( alarm). Production dates

[Eckehardt]

I just bought this Lecoultre 8 day alarm memovox clock ( meaning voice of memory). What was the production date of these little jems. I know they started in 1950 for memovox watches . This has the 219 caliber movement in it. When did they introduce this movement and clock? Do they have exact production date records? ( 7 jewels) works great keeps good time. I like the stopwork of the winding mechanism and the alarm limiter. Here are some pics. I only payed $50 for this Gem at a flea market.

[oldhippy]

The only info I can find is this. 1950 Creation of the Memovox, calibers 489 and 814.

I can tell you for a Jaeger-LeCoultre this is a very poor movement. No jewels to the train, just 7 jewels to the escapement.

[Eckehardt]

6 hours ago, oldhippy said:

The only info I can find is this. 1950 Creation of the Memovox, calibers 489 and 814.

 

I can tell you for a Jaeger-LeCoultre this is a very poor movement. No jewels to the train, just 7 jewels to the escapement.

 

Yeah most post war LeCoultres had 7 jewel movements unadjusted for a short period.

[Eckehardt]

On 29/01/2018 at 3:59 AM, oldhippy said:

 

 

So I spoke with the vendor that sold it to me, which is an interesting story. When his father bought it, it was a promotional item ( demo or introduction model to the memovox). The vendor told me that most demo or promotional models came with 7 jewels. If sales went well they would keep producing these with upgrades. He also showed me a black cockpit Le- Coultre, also 7 jewels which seems odd. One would figure military grade clocks would have 15 or more jewels. But my clock was purchased by the vendors father back in 1951. It came in a box but not in a leather case. He said it's bern serviced twice since that time. The last time was in 2015. 

Edited January 30, 2018 by Eckehardt

[Eckehardt]

I still think the movement still has an ingenious design. Using the Stackfreed type system for winding ( 1500s era) before the fusee. This also prevents the escapement from Galloping while winding it to the end. 

[oldhippy]

43 minutes ago, Eckehardt said:

I still think the movement still has an ingenious design. Using the Stackfreed type system for winding ( 1500s era) before the fusee. This also prevents the escapement from Galloping while winding it to the end. 

Funny when you think of it. Using an old system in what was at its time a modern day clock. Makes you wonder what was wrong with the design of the movement.

[Eckehardt]

The memovox was probably in its prototype phase in the 1950s. They probably wanted to make it more compact they probably used 7 jewels at first to test out the market. It's an alarm clock that probably gets banged around a lot so they left the jewels unadjusted. Keeping it basic simple. Why throw 15 jewels in a type of clock that takes abuse and if it doesn't sell well. So when the look caught the public eye and it sold. Le-coultre possibly refined the movement and made alarm watches with more jewels and better performance. To this day they still use the memovox dial in some of their watches and time pieces.

[wls1971]

From what I know the movement came in both 7 jewels and 15 jewel version, the 7 jewel versions where always sold under the lecoultre name and the 15 jewel versions sold only under the Jaeger Lecoultre name. They where probably made to a price with the bulk of the Lecoultre ones being sold into the American markets.

It seems to me it was seen as a clear seperation of the two nanes with Lecoultre marked clocks being seen as a cheaper alternative to the Jaeger lecoultre marked clocks.