NEWS: General Douglas MacArthur’s Jeager-LeCoultre Reverso to be sold at Auction
Felix Scholz“Fine, historically important and very rare” – that’s how Antiquorum describe Lot 359 in their upcoming Geneva auction of important timepieces.
And boy does this watch tick all those boxes. Vintage Jaeger-LeCoultre Reversos are currently enjoying increased demand, as JLC has recently been releasing a series of heritage inspired models. But the real story about Lot 359 is about the man whose initials are engraved onto the watches reverse.
General Douglas MacArthur is one of the twentieth centuries most important military leaders, with a military career that began during the Mexican Revolution and ended with the Korean War. But his greatest achievement was as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Southwest Pacific, overseeing the Allied victory in the Pacific.
And this is his watch, a Reference 201 Reverso from circa 1935 and retailed by Golay Fils and Stahl. The watch is being sold by MacArthur’s direct descendent and comes with letters of provenance and extracts from JLC’s archive. It isn’t clear if this watch was worn by MacArthur during his WWII campaign, but there’s no denying it was his and from the looks of it the watch saw an active life on the wrist, though it should be noted that the small seconds hand doesn’t look original.
But the greatest feature of this watch is the (unsurprisingly) boss “D Mac A” monogram. It’s hard to tell given that photographs of MacArthur out of uniform are rare, but given his watch I suspect that in civvies MacArthur was a stylish guy.
Auction houses are notorious for over claiming the significance of the products they’re selling, but this Reverso is a genuine piece of history.