The Reverso Duoface is the smartest single watch Jaeger-LeCoultre has ever built, and we mean that literally: it is one case with two dials, front and back, driven by one hand-wound movement. Flip the swivelling carriage and the watch you were wearing becomes a different watch, home time on one face and a second time zone on the other. The Reverso itself dates to 1931, born on a polo field in India when British officers wanted a wristwatch that could survive a mallet strike. Chauvot's answer was a rectangular case that slides in its cradle and flips over to protect the crystal with a solid metal back. For sixty-three years that back was a blank canvas, engraved, enameled, jeweled. Then in 1994 Jaeger-LeCoultre did the obvious-in-hindsight thing and put a second dial back there, wired to the same going train. That was the Duoface, and it is still the most useful complication in the entire Reverso line. We buy and sell these constantly on 47th Street, from the 1994 references through the current Tribute and Classic Duoface models, and it remains the Reverso we recommend to anyone who actually travels. Two faces, one wrist, and a party trick that never gets old at the dinner table.
Two things every Duoface owner learns. First, the second time zone corrector is a recessed pusher on the case flank that you set with a fingernail or the tip of the strap tool, not the crown; people who do not know this assume the rear dial is broken when it simply has not been set. Second, the reverse dial on the 1994 and later Duoface reads off the same going train as the front, so the two dials can never disagree about the minutes, only the hour offset, which is the whole elegance of the thing. Collectors prize the fact that the Duoface added no case diameter over a Monoface Reverso; the second dial lives in space the flip case already had, so you get a complication without a bigger watch. The India polo origin is real and worth knowing: the flip was engineered to turn the fragile crystal to safety during a match, and the solid metal back that resulted is the surface JLC later turned into the second dial. Buyers who commission engraving should note that on a Duoface the back is a working dial, so personalization moves to the carriage frame or is done sparingly; a plain Monoface remains the better canvas for a full engraving. Among 47th Street regulars the Duoface is the Reverso people keep, the one that survives the churn of a collection because it is the one they actually use when they fly.