Today we take precision in a watch for granted but it wasn’t always so. While quartz-driven modules have brought electronic accuracy, mechanical movements with their cogs and springs have only recently begun to approach them, a genuine feat considering their industrial beginnings. And while today it’s looks that mostly distinguish one watch brand from another, one name that has never lost sight of the paramount role of precision is Jaeger-LeCoultre, as attendees at the forthcoming About Time Watch Weekend will discover.

It’s a field in which the brand has form. As far back as 1830, and before opening his first watchmaking atelier, founder Antoine LeCoultre invented a machine in his father’s blacksmithing forge that made it possible to cut pinions from steel with an unprecedented degree of accuracy. Fourteen years later, he invented the first instrument capable of measuring a micron, the two devices benefiting the entire watchmaking industry.