Reverso Tribute 1931 (steel, hand-wound)

The Reverso Tribute to 1931 is a slim, rectangular steel watch whose whole case can turn over inside its frame. It has a black face, two hands and a leather strap. Jaeger-LeCoultre introduced this version in 2011, eighty years after the reversible case was developed to protect a watch's glass during polo.

The older idea is still easy to demonstrate. The case moves sideways, pivots and slides back into place with the dial facing inward. A plain steel reverse takes its place. The watch continues running inside; only the side presented to the outside has changed.

The 2011 Tribute keeps the single-face arrangement rather than adding a second display. Its dial is correspondingly spare. Long luminous markers reach inward from a narrow rectangular track, and the word Reverso sits beneath twelve. There is no date and no seconds hand. Three horizontal grooves at each end of the case repeat the rectangle's width.

Caliber 822 is wound by hand. Its rectangular shape fits the long case without requiring a round mechanism to occupy a much wider space. The absence of an automatic winding rotor helps keep this a thin construction, despite the additional frame needed for reversing it.

The plain back can remain undecorated. It also provides a surface for engraving, a use that developed early in Reverso history. Neither choice adds a function to the movement. It changes what is visible when the watch turns.

This is a watch with a conspicuous mechanical action outside the movement. The hands are simple; the case is the part that does something unexpected.