Almost two centuries old and Jaeger-LeCoultre still does not cease to amaze with their mechanical expertise and innovations in the domain of chiming watches. Their most recent offering, the Master Grande Tradition Répétition Minutes Perpétuelle, is a perfect example of that.

The new novelty features a gong system which resurrects the chime of the antique pocket watch sonneries in a new case design, an automatic winding system and an intuitive perpetual-calendar setting.

That means that Jaeger-LeCoultre has successfully found a way to produce the most energy-efficient and volume-optimised chime possible. This has been achieved by rethinking the configuration of the gong. Instead of laying the overlapping coils flat, the two gongs of the Master Grande Tradition Répétition Minutes Perpétuelle are welded together at their base to travel in the same direction around the periphery movement making one near-complete tour before dramatically arching upward along the height of the movement. This helps increase the space around the components and boosts the capacity of the calibre 950 to transmit sounds.

Coming to the perpetual calendar function, the calibre 950 hides a winding rotor within the movement and offers a full view of the mechanism from the caseback. This offers a rare option of declaring the timepiece as an automatic minute repeater instead of the usual manual-winding perpetual calendars.

The dial of Master Grande Tradition Répétition Minutes Perpétuell features two variations – a blue guilloche enamel and another silver-grained one. The dial displays an intuitive Security zone near the axis of the hour and minute hands. The indication of this comes up between the hours of 10pm and 1am – point to be noted, adjusting the time or calendar between these hours is not advised in order to avoid damaging or stressing the movement.

The 43mm Master Grande Tradition Répétition Minutes Perpétuell comes limited to 30 pieces each.