TISSOT Le Locle - 2+ years

[sci]

Around the celebration of it's 150 years anniversary in 2003, the traditional Swiss manufacturer TISSOT issued a watch, which quickly turns iconic among the mechanical dress watches - the Le Locle.



What catches immediately the eye is it's elegance. Le Locle is one of the most elegant automatic watches of today, even beyond it's price group. The watch case is 39mm x 11mm, but the watch looks thinner due to the curved form of the bezel and the back. The combination of polished faces and brushed sides additionally helps the effect. The signed crown is thin, but with large diameter - underlining the mechanical nature of the watch. Needless to say that the glass is flat sapphire and the case is stainless steel. I am still wondering if slightly curved glass would be better, as they did in the later Visodate (an excellent review here in the same section - Tissot Visodate 1957 Heritage Collection Automatic - REVIEW), but it is what it is.
The dials differs between the different generations of Le Locle. Mine is from the very early models, with very simple Bauhaus design. I prefer it versus the newer guilloshed dials with roman numerals, but I have to admit that the newer Le Locles are even more formal and dressier - if someone is looking for this effect. Sticking to the traditions, the dials of Le Locles are either white or black - just no way to go wrong.
Very specific in Le Locle are it's hands. The form and size just screams "elegance" and it's amazing how such a small (by size) component is influencing the overall appearance of the whole watch. Look at them, and you will understand what I mean.


The watch is a 3 hands automatic with date window, powered by the workhorse of ETA - the 2824-2. I don't know the grade of the movement, but the precision of mine is relatively good +6 sec out of the box. The high frequency of 28800 rph is moving the loooong second hand very smoothly, I just can not imagine this watch with quartz! I will just show a picture of the case back and the movement, without commenting it - it speaks by itself (ahh, I should clear the fingerprints before taking the photo...):


The Le Locle is surprisingly affordable, but don't fall in the trap of extremely low prices - this model is maybe the most faked TISSOT model. Buy it only from safe sources (AD).

[AsAnAtheist]

Dude nice review of the watch, I liked it very much.
The Le Locle and Hamilton Jazzmaster (now off the list because I realized the Liberty jazzmaster can't be had in mechanical format) have been two must have watches, even surpassing my dream grail the Omega Seamaster Aquaterra)

I got my Le Locle, black dial and steel bracelet (newer guillochesque dial) 2 months ago~ and have not looked back. I actually unsuspectingly got an AD offering it for $380.
When I first got it, I would leave it dial side up, and was getting about 4-5 seconds a day fast. Since I started putting it in my watch box it went to 4 seconds a day slow. Excellent time by any standard. But....
One day I was tired from work, I synced it with time.gov then left it crown up. The next day it was still synced. Three days later (today) it's still synced to the time.gov. Im quite happy that I am getting quartz performance with mechanical pride. I am now just scared I will loose this accuracy and it was just a fluke.