An alarm you can't hear underwater
By Tom Hargreaves, Falmouth, Cornwall ยท
The original Memovox Polaris from 1968 had a three-layer caseback so the alarm would carry through the water and you could hear it at depth, more or less, as a reminder to start your ascent. Lovely idea. Most of the divers I knew in the Navy would have told you the same thing: the reminder you actually trust is your own bottom timer, and your buddy tapping his wrist at you.
Still, I've got a soft spot for this one. It's a genuine oddball. A diver with a mechanical alarm, set by the second crown, driven by the 956 movement. 42 mm across, 14.3 mm thick, 200 m. Black dial, comes on leather.
And that last bit, the leather strap, tells you everything. This is not a watch for getting wet. It's for desk diving, and I don't say that nastily. Nothing wrong with a beautiful watch that reminds you about your two o'clock meeting with a buzz.
My problems with it as a diver: 45 hours of reserve, which is short for this money, no external bezel to grab, and a thickness that makes it sit up quite tall on the wrist. The alarm complicates the case and there's more to go wrong if water gets in.
$18,100 to $19,500. For that you could have a Rolex Sea-Dweller and a cheap Casio with an alarm. That's what I'd do. But I wouldn't laugh at anyone who bought the JLC, because there's nothing else quite like it, and owning something odd and lovely is a perfectly good reason to spend money.