JLC Navy Seal "ALDAO"

[ath1212]

This christmas l bought myself 60mm macro lense, and l thought start off with taking photos of my JLC Navy Seal "ALDOA" LE. I've always liked JLC watches, for their movements, classic styling through their modern styles using new materials in the design. After flipping a couple of watches, l was cashed up and ready to pull the trigger on a watch l've being wanting for a while. I was in The Hourglass in Melbourne when l noticed they had a JLC Navy Seal. I tried it on and it screamed at me. They told me their's 20% off JLC which was tempting, then Bibi the manager of the store which l know quite well offered me a further 10% discount. After bring it home, l googled to find out why mine was a limited edition to 30 units. I found this article.

June 4th, a group of Spanish collectors have been invited by the jeweler "ALDAO" to be presented with the new "Navy Seal" collection during dinner. During casual conversation at dinner it was revealed to one of these collectors that in fact, unlike the prototype, the official production version will have the "Jaeger leCoultre" as well as the "300 meters waterproof" printed on the dial. There has been quite a stir with this Special Edition "Navy Seal Alarm" at the forums lately. The piece is essentially the same as the original one except for one "small" modification. The inscription on the glass instead of on the alarm wheel. Unlike most might think, this is no small difference, in fact this was how the NSA was initially planed. The regular NSA will be made 1,500 times and 30 out of these will be made with the printing on the glass.

[capote]

Cool watch

[The Relumer]

very nice !!

[nick c]

[ocwatching]

Fantastic find and a great deal!
Have always loved the NSA but the alarm disk Markings killed it.
There is something new everyday with the NSA!
Congrats!

[wantonebad]

I really do like this watch, had it on in the Bahama's at the Atlantis JLC AD and it really was comfortable for such a big bulky diver, it wears big but feels balanced and comfy!

[craniotes]

That watch stirred a lot of controversy in the community when it was quietly released back in 2009.

A lot of folks felt duped when the production version of the NSA was released without the etched crystal, which was seen as an almost defining feature of the watch. Pre-productions photos, and indeed the pieces shown at SIHH all sported this novel text placement, which really was an ingenious solution to the problem of having the branding continually floating around the dial. As such, I'm sure you can imagine collector's collective surprise when their watches finally turned up at their ADs with the words painted firmly on the the alarm disc. JLC's explanation was that the etching interfered with the AR coating underneath the crystal, and hence, it had to be left off. This placated some, at least until the Aldao LE was released, which left many feeling as though JLC pulled a fast one on them. Indeed, a small furor was raised again when the more extreme Incursion LEs were announced with the same crystal treatment as the Aldao.

Hang on to that one, Bill, it's truly special.

Regards,
Adam

PS - My Incursion:

(I've gotta admit, the effect is pretty cool...)

PPS - For those who are unaware, I believe there are about five completely sterile NSAs floating around out there as well (no text on the dial or crystal).

[ath1212]

thanks for the nice comments guys

[VetteBandit]

Looks great. Really like that piece and really really like the etched glass feature.