A. Lange & Söhne

tony p
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Further Lange photos from SIHH 2010

One of my most memorable experiences from SIHH 2008 was the A Lange & Söhne press presentation. Held in a large square room onto whose white walls were projected an extraordinarily detailed and photorealistic 360º recreation of late 18th-century Dresden, Lange's carefully orchestrated show featured as its centrepiece a high-budget movie about Lange's featured new release for that year, the Cabaret Tourbillon.

Loud and overbearing, with a stupendously overblown orchestral score and eye-popping digital animations of the new Cabaret's workings, the presentation was full of sound and fury, signifying...not all that much. OK, the Cabaret's hacking tourbillon was an interesting and cleverly executed concept. But overall, there was precious little in the way of real news from Lange that year, belying the grandiose scale of their press show.

Lange at SIHH in 2010 could hardly be more different. A much more low-key affair, this year's presentation consisted of a modest introductory talk with Powerpoint slideshow, delivered by Lange's affable Press and Public Relations Director, Mr Arnd Einhorn. The actual watches, on the other hand, were a revelation.





Based around the theme "165 Years - Homage to F.A. Lange", the 2010 collection bristles with new releases featuring unusual materials, new complications based on clever technical innovations patented by Lange, and some great new dial designs.

Leading the charge is a set of three limited-edition complicated watches, the "Homage to F.A. Lange Collection" encased in a new honey-coloured 18K gold alloy of exceptional (300-320 Vickers) hardness, and featuring hand-engraved movement decoration inspired by historic pieces from Lange's glorious past. All three releases share solid gold guilloché dials and in-house hairsprings.





The Tourbograph Pour le Merité is a new tranche of 50 pieces of Lange's most complicated watch in honey gold, with honey gold movement bridges decorated in sunburst Glashütte stripes and a hand-engraved peripheral wave pattern.




The Tourbograph movement features a chain-and-fusée mechanism whose chain alone comprises some 630 parts, in addition to the other 600 parts making up the movement.





Finishing is up to Lange's usual extremely high standards. With incredible depth and stunning fine detail, this must surely be one of the most impressive rattrapante mechanisms on the market today.








Also in honey gold to a total of 165 pieces, the Lange 1 Tourbillon now incorporates the stop-second tourbillon mechanism first unveiled two years ago with so much fanfare.





 I like this piece better than the Cabaret. The dial-side tourbillon bridge is in honey gold, and the large date disc has been rendered in transparent sapphire to allow an unimpeded view of the tourby -





On the movement's three-quarter plate we find the same hand-engraved sunburst stripes and wavy patterns. Lange decided also to hand-engrave their movement inscriptions, which is a lovely touch.





The balance and escape cocks are also hand-engraved, and will be rendered in honey gold for the production model; on the prototype seen here, these cocks were in rose gold.





Completing the Homage trilogy is a new and much-awaited 1815 Moonphase in honey gold case, with a moon disc coated in PVD and laser-cut with stars -





Again we find similar hand-engravings on the three-quarter plate -





To my eye this new watch is not as stunningly beautiful as the legendary Emil Lange 1815 Mondphase from ten years ago; but that was a one-off phenomenon, which Lange were right not to try to emulate. This new design is classically elegant in its simplicity, and all 265 pieces are sure to be snapped up rather quickly.


Responding to criticisms about the nocturnal legibility of their recent Zeitwerk release, Lange have decided to give us a new (and substantially more expensive) version with Superluminova digits and a smoky-coloured translucent dial -





The sapphire dial has a reverse coating in titanium oxide, which allows UV (but not visible) light through to recharge the lume on all the digits, as well as giving the watch's owner a tantalising glimpse of the rotating date wheels which lie beneath -





Depending on incident light and viewing angle, this interesting dial takes on different colours and levels of transparency. Lange would have us call this piece the "Phantom" -





I note that Lange are moving away from the austerity of their previous three-quarter plates, which covered most of the mechanical goodies. Lately they are sitting their patented complications on top of the plate, the better for us to admire their intricacies -








It was not until I started post-processing my photos that I noticed the new adjustable-mass regulating weights on Lange's balance wheels, somewhat reminiscent of Patek's Gyromax system (but with six rim-mounted weights instead of the Gyromax's usual four or eight). The idea is not new, having been patented by Patek as long ago as 1949. One notable difference is that the Lange balance wheel still employs a swan-neck regulator, rather than the free-sprung configuration of the Gyromax design -





The Richard Lange range has always been devoted to the promotion of accuracy in time-keeping. A new innovation for 2010 is the Richard Lange Referenzuhr, featuring a zero-reset mechanism for the small seconds hand -





Again we find much of the watch's mechanical wizardry mounted above its three-quarter plate, imparting a delicious sense of complication to offset the serenity of the Referenzuhr's minimalist dial -





The Referenzuhr will be available in a set of 50 pieces in platinum and 75 in pink gold.





In welcome contrast to two years ago, when I didn't get any chance to photograph the releases, this year I was given my own private room and unfettered access to dozens of pieces. I can tell you that lining up such a large number of such complex and finely-executed watches can be a dizzying experience -





Yet another all-new release for 2010 is the Lange 1 Daymatic, available in yellow, rose gold or platinum cases, and featuring Lange's very first full-diameter rotor -





The Daymatic has polarised opinion in the Lange community, with some decrying the new dial layout as "meddling" with an iconic design; but as Mr Einhorn pointed out, after some 15 years, it was time to introduce some changes. Certainly, this new Lange 1 has a fair degree of extra practicality, with its automatic winding, retrograde weekday indicator, and shirtcuff-friendly main dial position -





Again we see on the movement side, Lange's new policy of giving us more to look at. The boldly engraved full-size rotors are very eye-catching -





New to the Saxonia range is the Saxonia Annual Calendar, another highly useful complication with an extremely well-laid-out and legible dial design -





With its 38.5mm case diameter in white or rose gold, classic looks and the added benefit of a zero-reset seconds mechanism, this new Saxonia is bound to create a serious challenge to Patek's previously unquestioned ascendancy in the high-end annual calendar market -





The Sax-o-Mat movement is not new, but it's still a beauty -





It does, however, retain the old-styled screwed balance wheel, which is necessarily of a smaller diameter due to the circumferential protrusion of the screws -




That's seven new releases so far, including three all-new complications (the Rererenzuhr, Daymatic, and Saxonia - I'm not even including the Zeitwerk, as it's not strictly a 2010 release). Had enough? Go make yourself a cup of tea, because I'm not finished. The final watch for this year is the long-awaited new 1815 Chronograph, with redeveloped movement featuring a 60-hour power reserve, 18,000vph beat rate and Lange's in-house balance spring, as well as an all-new dial design which eschews the old model's pulsometre scale in favour of a simpler and more legible display -





The new 1815 chrono movement looks very similar to its predecessor, but with the new and larger variable-inertia balance and some other subtle alterations which in no way detract from the overall beauty of this extremely fetching calibre -











I have no hesitation in stating that Lange had more on offer, in terms of both new models and technical innovation, than any of the other brands I visited as SIHH this year (although I didn't get to see all of them). At the same time, they have managed to stay reassuringly true to their overall brand personality and values, which are so important to their admirers.

Cheers
Tony P

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