Alright, so, I’ve been messing around with watches lately, and I got my hands on this Jaeger-LeCoultre JLC Duomètre à Quantième Lunaire. This isn’t a real one, of course, it’s a knockoff I found online. But hey, it looks pretty slick, and I wanted to see what it was all about.
First off, this thing is supposed to be a “manual-wind,” which means you gotta wind it up yourself. No batteries here. It’s got this little crown on the side that you turn. Apparently, the real deal has this fancy “Caliber 822” movement inside. This one? Who knows. But it’s got a bunch of parts moving around in there, I can see them through the back. Looks complicated, but probably not 108 parts like I saw that real ones have.
- Wind it up: So, I started winding it. You just twist that crown, and you can feel it getting tighter. I guess that’s how it stores up energy?
- Setting the time: There’s another little crown thingy that you pull out to set the time. You turn it, and the hands move around. Pretty standard stuff.
- Moon phase thing: This watch has this cool little moon phase display. It shows you what the moon looks like in the sky. I had to look up how to set it, but basically, you figure out what the current moon phase is, and then you adjust it using one of the pushers on the side.
- Date: It’s also got a date display. That’s the “Quantième” part of the name, I think. Setting that was easy enough, just another crown to turn.
I wore this thing around for a few days, just to see how it felt. It’s a bit bulky, but not too bad. The strap is leather, which is nice. Keeps ticking as long as I remember to wind it up every day. I saw online that some of these watches, maybe not this one, have like a 42-hour power reserve. That would be nice, but I haven’t timed this one yet to see how long it lasts on a full wind.
Honestly, the whole manual-wind thing is kinda cool. It makes you feel more connected to the watch, you know? Like you’re part of how it works. It’s not just some electronic thing that you slap on your wrist.
I also read about some other fancy Jaeger-LeCoultre watches, like this “Extreme LAB 2” thing. Sounds way more complicated than this one, probably costs a fortune. This fake one was cheap, so I’m not complaining. There are also some “Reverso” ones out there that have this 822 thing too and are pretty limited.
So yeah, that’s my little experiment with this imitation Jaeger-LeCoultre. It’s not the real deal, but it’s a fun little piece to mess around with. Makes me appreciate the real ones even more, though. Maybe one day I’ll get my hands on a real one. We’ll see.
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