Vintage Jaeger LeCoultre USAF Military Aircraft Clock Type A-10A 8 Day 14 Jewel

Look what I just found, I know this is a 1953 but can't find out much about it. I paid $350 did I get a good deal?

Any information on history would be appreciated. Thanks in advance

Skio

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A-10A

Hi Skip.

You mention that your Jaeger LeCoulter A-10A was made in 1953 but I think that it might have been made a smidge more recently than 1953. The data plate on the back shows a US Air Force contract date ordering these in 1954 so this would have been made in 1954 at the earliest or within a couple of years after then depending on the time period in the actual contract. The A-10 models were first made in the 1930s and were basically replaced near the beginning of WW2 by the Elgin-Hamilton 37500 five dial chronometers which were more accurate and could do more things. The A-10s were called Chronoflites and there were several variations with 12 and 24 hour dials, and they were sold to and used by both the Army Air Corps and Naval Aviation. The early ones tend to be the ones that most collectors seed since most were used during the war which lends them a bit of built-in history. Yours being post WW2 and post Korea makes it peacetime use. You see A10s for sale on Ebay regularly where the sellers attach silly high prices that they never seem to get - prices like $800 or $1,000 or such. Of course these early Chronoflites are valuable but here is a recent auction where one in very nice working condition sold for $335 $335 Early Chronoflite

Your clock seems to have altered hands on it. They should be like the ones you see in the early model in that auction. They were painted with radium paint making them look the same as the paint on the numerals on yours, not the bright yellow that is on yours. Perhaps someone stripped off the original paint and repainted them yellow, or perhaps these are recently produced replacements. The price you paid of $350 for your late model one seems a bit full to me but that is only my personal opinion given the recent Ebay sale of an early original one in working condition for less. Perhaps the full price you paid was in part due to the clock being recently fully serviced with full disassembly, cleaning, worn part relacing, and timing? If so such a service would be worth a premium on the selling price. It is a nice clock.

As usually thanks for the info Jim. Is there a trick to working the elapsed time, I seem to only get the chrom timer to work. I notice when I turn the knob in the center the bottome of the timer changes.

I just recieved the clock and am still playing with it. I am able to try something different to see if I can get the elapsed timer to work.

Oh and the clock was fully service and sounds like it was, maybe the person who serviced it painted the hands. I'll ask

Skip

I am not an expert on these and I do not know all of the functions of the knobs and indicator windows but in general I believe that the left-hand button is used to wind the clock and set the hands, the right-hand button to start, stop and reset the chronograph function, and the centre button pauses the 'Time of Trip'. On the earlier models the winding and setting was done counter-clockwise but I am not sure if this was the case on the late models from the 1950s such as yours.

You might ask whether yours was professionally cleaned and adjusted. Some sellers just give the entire movement a dunk in a sonic cleaner to get them going but that is not really servicing. It leaves gunk in the works that acts like sandpaper when you run it and creates issues over time. When I talk about a professional cleaning I mean a complete disassembly, each part cleaned and any worn parts replaced and then reassembled and then adjusted for accuracy. It is a pretty big and costly job.

It struck me what the problem is with this clock. The left hand knob is wrong, it is not dual functional like it is in the Hamilton/Elgin 37500. With this clock you have to reset the time every time you start/stop the elapsed timer and fumble with it until the timer engages. This clock is going back.

Jim, if you see any of these clocks for around the $330.00 marl, please let me know, I am back in the market for one.

Jim, as always thanks for the help.

Skip