During an A.Lange & Söhne watches’ presentation, Anthony De Haas‘s talent is unique in entertaining journalists and collectors. The engagement is perceivable even if you’re sitting miles away, anywhere with a camera and a laptop. His speech is as composed as it provides plenty of details to get you through what’s new from one generation to another. Capturing what’s new, given the brand’s minimalistic approach to changes, is somehow a challenging task for the brand’s aficionados and Haute-Horlogerie experts too.
We now take a quick look at the brand’s main novelties introduced by A.Lange & Söhne at Watches and Wonders 2021. The products’ pictures you see here were taken by A.Lange & Söhne‘s photographers’ team; a huge thank you for such a stunning photo shooting. The manufacturer unveiled four new timepieces in total, including the new Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar available in two options; one is not limited in numbers (although we’re not expecting high production volumes), the second one is a limited edition model instead. The second new timepiece is a more eye-pleasing take on the legendary Triple Split, now in rose gold with a dark blue dial. Finally, A.Lange & Söhne also introduces the Little Lange 1 Moon Phase, which you won’t see pictured and reviewed here.
The A.Lange & Söhne Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar
Prove me wrong if you don’t think of the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar at first sight. Without any doubt, the new Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar shares style and proportions with one of the most coveted and sought-after Lange 1, making it now more “accessible” as far as the Lange collector is concerned. The option you see pictured here is a 150-piece limited edition model crafted in white gold with a pink gold matching dial that looks salmon-colored.
The case is 41.9 mm large and 12.1 mm thick (hence a 0.1 mm off the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar) but preserves the Lange’s signature perpetual calendar layout with a rotating ring elapsing the months placed on the dial’s outer edge. It is the retrograde day visualizer at nine o’clock, and at six o’clock, you’ll find the unmistakable triangular-shaped leap-year display. The headline news is the day and night rotating disk placed underneath the moon segment; it comes in two shades of blue; it’s brighter to display the day’s hours and turns dark blue, and with a starred sky, during the night. The moon cycle is almost perfect, requiring the first manual correction in a 122.6 years cycle.
The Lange L021.3 caliber is not a Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar with the Tourbillon removed; it derives from a Lange 1 Daymatic base caliber, and the technical layout reveals how the intricate construction has replaced the three-quarter plate you’ll find on the Tourbillon instead. The icing on the cake is the winding mass, an 18-karat gold finely engraved masterpiece with an outer ring milled in platinum. The L021.3 ensures a 50 hours power reserve when fully wound. Retailing at 109,000 Euros in white gold, and 98,000 Euros in a rose gold case with gray dial, the new A.Lange & Söhne Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar is a great value proposition and quite a price undercut compared to a tourbillon.
The A.Lange & Söhne Triple Split Rose Gold
Lange brings the Triple Split to new heights with this rose gold case surrounding a dark blue dial; gone are the days where understatement was a must-have at Glashütte; thus, the Triple Split, the only chronograph capable of measuring different events up to twelve hours, so far, looks warmer than ever before. Also, you won’t forget it incorporates a Flyback function too. In either construction and fine adjustment, its complication level requires a technical involvement to the highest degree.
The A.Lange & Söhne Triple Split Rose Gold is 43.2 mm across and 15.6 mm thick to accommodate such an intricate and challenging mechanical complication. The dial comes in a dark blue palette, slightly changing its tone under the powerful studio lighting system. You’ll recognize how legible it is, at first glance, thanks to the contrasting rhodium-plated against the blue base. The three couple of hands come, each in different materials, to ease reading the elapsed seconds, minutes, and hours.
Welcome to “Micro-city”
The caliber L132.1 is a kind of beauty and proof positive of its workshops’ expertise and refinement. “Micro-city” is the nickname most A. Lange & Söhne collectors gave to this 567-part piece of micro-engineering. In the lower end, you’ll instantly recognize the chronograph column-wheel, with the split-second one standing on the opposite side instead. The signature finely engraved balance cock with a swan-neck fine adjustment regulating system is hidden from the view. The main plate and bridges are of German silver, as usual.
It is a mechanical movement deserving an in-depth analysis and whose majesty proves the skills the young watchmaking team has achieved so far and so rapidly. Considering how difficult it is to build and fine-adjust every single mechanical movement this refined (it also is adjusted in five positions), I can only guess the effort and involvement needed to manufacture the 100 pieces expected. The retail price is 159,400 euros.
(Photo credit: A.Lange & Söhne)
Gaetano C @Horbiter®
