Archive for the ‘A. Lange & Sohne’ category

SIHH 2010: A. Lange & Sohne Admirable “165 Years – Homage to F.A. Lange” Anniversary Collection

January 23rd, 2010

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Yesterday, I introduced the magnificent and historic Grand Complication 42500 pocket watch from A. Lange & Sohne. In fact, it is a member of the new “165 Years – Homage to F.A. Lange” anniversary collection, along with the TOURBOGRAPH “Pour le Me´rite”, the LANGE 1 TOURBILLON, and the 1815 MOONPHASE. These creations pays sincere tribute to the founder of Germany’s precision watchmaking industry and to the trailblazing creations devised in his manufactory.

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TOURBOGRAPH “Pour le Me´rite”

The rest three watches of the collection are the trilogy of values – three horological milestones. With a series of exceptional complications, those incredible timepieces demonstrate the spiritual legacy of the founder of Germany’s precision watchmaking industry, as well as the horological heritage of Ferdinand Adolph Lange enriched with contemporary ingenuity and artisanal virtuosity. Dressed in novel gold alloy cases of hitherto unmatched hardness, the three impressive timekeeping instruments give a new face to the enduring watchmaking tradition of the Lange family as regards technical and aesthetic perfection.

In 1845, Ferdinand Adolph Lange moved from the splendour of palatial Dresden to the remote and impoverished mining town of Glashutte to make his dream of the ideal watch manufactory come true. He started his work with the intention of creating the world’s finest watches. With the awareness of the fact that today’s innovation is tomorrow’s standard, he believed that precision watchmaking owes numerous inventions and enhancements. For example, he was one of the first members to adopt metric units of measurement and abandon the then prevalent but complicated Parisian ligne system. His work featured the quest for extreme precision. The drafts for mechanisms of his own design, even the most complicated ones, were benchmarking as regards clarity of engineering and layout. His values remain the “standard” that inspires the work of all Lange employees.

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1815 MOONPHASE

The novel case metal for the new collection is developed exclusively for Lange, reaffirming the capabilities of A. Lange & Sohne. With a Vickers hardness of over 300, the 18-carat honey-coloured gold is about twice as hard as other gold alloys. A balance spring developed and manufactured in-house is breathing beneath the hand-engraved balance cock made of the same material. It manifests the innovative energy with which every Lange watch is endowed. A guilloched solid- gold dial and a sunburst finish on the three-quarter plate of the 1815 MOONPHASE and the crown wheel cock of the LANGE 1 TOURBILLON present the proud ancestral artisanship of the family tradition.

The 1815 MOONPHASE symbolizes the company’s constant quest for the supreme precision. No effort was spared to calculate an extremely accurate moon-phase train for this watch. Thanks to a suite of wheels with special transmission ratios, its error per lunar month is a nearly infinitesimal 6.61 seconds. It takes 1,058 years for this error to add up to a deviation of one day relative to the actual lunar cycle. For instance, had such a timepiece existed in the year 952 – during the lifetime of Otto I the Great – and had it run without interruption since then, its moon-phase display would have to be corrected for the first time this year (2010 = 952 + 1058).

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LANGE 1 TOURBILLON with the CABARET TOURBILLON

The LANGE1 TOURBILLON is based on the legendary LANGE 1, whose first version was released at the turn of the millennium. To mark the admirable anniversary collection, the new version of the LANGE1 TOURBILLON has been integrated with the patented stop-seconds mechanism owned by the breathtaking CABARET TOURBILLON. With this marvelous heart, the watch is enabled to directly and instantaneously stop the balance inside the rotating tourbillon cage, which for two hundred years was considered to be the ne plus ultra of horological sophistication.

With a view to the concepts the collection embodies, the group of the three watches reaffirms Lange’s powerful claim “state-of-the-art tradition”. It expresses Lange’s long-standing principle of questioning the validity of even what is already considered perfect.

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SIHH 2010: A. Lange & Sohne Grand Complication No. 42500

January 22nd, 2010

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In the picture is the splendid A. Lange & Sohne Grand Complication No. 42500, whose restoration has taken nearly 9 years. To give a second birth to this historic Lange pocket watch is a painstaking task yet a magnificent feat for the whole industry.

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It is in 2001 that the worm-eaten original watch was brought to Jan Sliva, head of the in-house studio for historic Lange pocket watches. It was particularly large and heavy, and its case was engraved with an intricate motif designed by Professor Graff. At first sight judging from the appearance, Jan Sliva was sure about that the timepiece was an exceptional one. However, he was astonished and scared when he opened the artistically decorated caseback. What he found is a movement that at best could be called “scrap heap”. All parts were grimy, many were rusted, some were missing altogether, others were broken or so heavily corroded that their original shape could merely be surmised. Only the eight-part enamel dial was in relatively good condition. Just as what Jan Sliva said, the original watch was an inestimably precious junkyard.

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The A. Lange & Sohne Grand Complication No. 42500 is a unique piece in the world. The one and only model was sold to a resident of Vienna for 5,600 marks in 1902. At that time, the amount of money was equivalent to the price of a stately house. The watch was really worth the price. It unites a host of fascinating complications: a chiming mechanism with a grand strike and a small strike, a minute repeater, a split-seconds chronograph with a minute counter and flying seconds (seconde foudroyante), as well as a perpetual calendar with a moon-phase display. Its nickel-plated German silver movement in 1A quality consists of an incredible 833 parts. In face of such a venerable of great historic value, Jan Sliva and his colleagues decided to study and document the functions and interactions of the individual components on the basis of what was left and to fully restore the functionality of all the mechanisms. “This is the only chance we had,” says the master watchmaker, “to preserve the ingenuity of our fathers and forefathers for coming generations. What good is a heap of rust, however authentic it might be, if no one knows what it once looked like and how it worked?”

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Finally, in 2009, the A. Lange & Sohne Grand Complication No. 42500 made a stunning comeback as a complicated star. It has been completely restored to its former splendour. And now, it is on public display for the first time at the SIHH 2010 in Geneva. The restoration of the breathtaking watch symbols the building of a bridge that connects the ingenuity of the Lange watchmaking dynasty with the virtuosity of the current generation of watchmakers. “After this, I can’t imagine what might still lie ahead,” Jan Sliva says. “Only very, very few people get a chance during their lifetime to restore such a treasure.” As a monument of horological expertise and human passion, this watch is indeed the highlight of Jan Sliva’s horological career.

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SIHH 2010: A. Lange & Sohne Saxonia Annual Calendar and Little Saxonia

January 20th, 2010

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Today, we are going to talk about two new watches of Saxonia line released by A. Lange & Sohne at SIHH 2010 – Saxonia Annual Calendar and Little Saxonia. The former is definitely one of the most refined and multifunctional watches from the famous German watchmaker, while the latter is one of the smallest watches built by the company.

The Saxonia Annual Calendar watch demonstrates a surprising combination of refined external design and functionality. As seen on the argenté Solid silver, the watch has everything practical a Lange owner can expect: time indication with hours and minutes, subsidiary seconds with stop seconds and ZERO-RESET function, annual calendar with patented outsize date, day-of-week, month, and moon-phase displays. All the useful complication has been housed in a white or pink gold case in the diameter of 38.5mm. The blued steel Rhodiumed pink gold hands causes a nice visual contrast along with the white dial. The operating elements includes a crown, made of the same material with the case, and a push piece for advancing the outsize date, day-of-week, month, and moon-phase displays.

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Ticking inside the marvelous watch is a self-winding Lange manufacture calibre L085.1 SAX-0-MAT, crafted to the most exacting Lange quality standards and largely decorated and assembled by hand. When looking through the sapphire case back, we are enabled to appreciate the finest workings of the watch heart: three-quarter plate made of untreated German silver with integrated three-quarter rotor in 21-carat gold and centrifugal mass in platinum, reversing and reduction gear with four ball bearings; balance cock engraved by hand. The Oscillation system deserves to be mentioned: Shock-resistant glucydur screw balance, Nivarox balance spring, frequency 21,600 semi-oscillations per hour, whiplash precision index adjuster with patented beat adjustment mechanism. The movement offers a power reserve of 46 hours.

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Though the Saxonia Annual Calendar is very awesome, the brand has already unveiled some watches similar to this watch. However, the Little Saxonia is really an exceptional model in the case that it’s very hard to find some A. Lange & Sohne watches created exclusively for the ladies. In the size of no larger than 34mm in diameter and only 8mm high, the watch highly suits its name “Little”, a synonym of the lovely in the feminine world. This exquisite timepiece is a perfect fit for ladies’ wrists. Set with 52 brilliant-cut diamonds, its case and the scintillating dial in natural mother-of-pearl will make its wearer shine on a very special night out, which is why it’s been given the nickname ‘Soirée’.

The movement for the classy watch is the Lange manufacture calibre L941.2. A glance through the sapphire-crystal caseback is a feast for the eyes of those who delight in technical finesse – from the three-quarter plate and the gold chatons secured with blued screws to the whiplash precision index adjuster. There are three versions available for the Little Saxonia: white, yellow and rose gold. This model is a little alternative for the A. Lange & Sohne and the event of SIHH 2010.

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SIHH 2010: A. Lange & Sohne RICHARD LANGE Referenzuhr

January 19th, 2010

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To make a stunning addition to the line of observation watches dedicated entirely to precise time keeping, the limited-edition RICHARD LANGE Referenzuhr model has been presented at SIHH 2010, which is created by the excellent watchmaker A. Lange & Sohne. The innovative seconds hand resetting mechanism – ZERO-RESTART function applied in the new watch demonstrates the brand’s full devotion to the scientific facets of Haute Horlogerie with the attention to the utmost degree of precision.

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Dating back far into the 19th century, the RICHARD LANGE watch family started its finest watchmaking with the understanding that the accuracy of a timepiece reflects the competence of the master. The tradition have not changed a bit, while the horology has been developed at an amazing speed over the past 150 years. Featuring its resettable subsidary seconds, the A. Lange & Sohne RICHARD LANGE Referenzuhr watch is going to add another successful plot to the magnifiscent story of the historic watch family. The seconds hand jumps to zero when the push piece obove the crown is depressed. During that time, the movement keeps running and the ongoing measurement of time is in the charge of a vertical disc clutch. The seconds hand restarts instantaneously when releasing the push piece.

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The ZERO-RESTART function is ideal for stopping events of short durations, and is also very useful for synchronising watches and clocks at different locations. When the seconds hand passes the zero mark (60-seconds), the pressure of the push piece synchronises the hand of the instrument with that of a reference clock exactly. The time of the reference clock can be stored in this way and then transferred to other timekeeping instruments which need the precise time. The watch is designed to pay homage to Dresden, a stronghold of time measurement that played an important role in 19th century.

The RICHARD LANGE Referenzuhr comes with a pink gold or platinum case. The silver dial features its off-centre subsidiary seconds, a good reminder of a historic pioneer made in 1811 – a pocket chronometer known to have been used for synchronisation purposes by the timekeeping service. It was designed and crafted by Johann Heinrich Seyffert who did more to promote precision horology in Dresden than any other watchmaker. One of his chronometers had served for a reliable timekeeper of the famous naturalist and exporer Alexander von Humboldt in the renowned Latin American expedition.

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Beating inside the watch is a Lange manufacture calibre L033.1, manually wound, crafted to the most exciting Lange quality standards. Beating at a frequency of six semi-oscillations per second, it assures the precision that can be reasonably expected of an instrument designed to serve the sciences. The transparent case back is protected by a glareproof sapphire crystal, allowing us to appreciate the technical finesse of the movement. Functions includes time display in hours, minutes, subsidiary seconds with stop seconds, ZERO-RESTART mechanismm, and a power reserve indicator of 38 hours. Only 50 watches in platinum and 75 in pink gold are available worldwide, strictly limited and exclusive.

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SIHH 2010: A. Lange & Sohne Zeitwerk Luminous

January 18th, 2010

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This week, I will bring five excellent watches unveiled at SIHH 2010 by the famous German watchmaker A. Lange & Sohne. As five highlights of the great event, these fresh German pieces are sure to attract attention.

Let’s start with the A. Lange & Sohne Zeitwerk Luminous, an exceptional watch featuring an unmatched “Luminous” system. As seen in the picture, the unique dial design with the hour and minute display apertures, completed with the PVD treatment, forms a stunning time bridge. The bright numerals, coated with white Superluminova, results in a good legibility in the dark floating incandescently above the black background. The dial is protected by a dark-tinted sapphire crystal, with the light-permeable coating enabling the numerals to be charged with enough photonic energy to uniformly emit it again during the night for several hours. With the luminous system, the Zeitwerk Luminous timepiece is allowed to show the time reliably in any light conditions. A constant-force escapement, between the mainspring barrel and the balance, is applied to generate the switching power. And it also makes sure that the energy can be constantly transmitted to the watch during the entire power-reserve period.

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The platinum case houses a manually wound Lange manufacture calibre L043.1, crafted to the most exacting Lange quality standards, decorated and assembled by hand. Precision-adjusted in five positions, threequarter plate made of untreated German silver, balance cock engraved by hand, jumping minutes, constant-force escapement – all the refined features incorporated by the movement have unquestionably turned the name of this German watchmaker into a synonym for peerless horological quality in the world watch industry.

The watch is available with a black hand-stitched crocodile strap, fitted with a Lange prong buckle in solid platinum. The hands is crafted with rhodiumed gold. Presenting striking dark/light contrasts, the A. Lange & Sohne Zeitwerk Luminous will be released in a limited edition of only 100 pieces worldwide.

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