Lange 1

A. Lange & Sohne Lange 1 Daymatic Watch

For 2010 comes this Lange 1 Daymatic watch from everyone's favorite German luxury watch brand A. Lange & Sohne. The Lange 1 Daymatic is the first ever automatic watch in the Lange 1 line - a collection of watches that is much responsible or Lange's current market position as it allowed the revitalized brand to be noticed back in the 1990s. A. Lange & Sohne very rarely makes automatic movements. Instead preferring to produce beautifully decorated in-house movement that are traditional in style, and don't have views of the movement blocked by an automatic rotor (and the caseback is sapphire for a view).

You can't deny that automatic movements are more popular and more convenient. So it is high time that A. Lange & Sohne decided to make one for the Lange 1 line. Adding an automatic winding movement helps alleviate the need or usefulness of a power reserve indicator. As such, Lange decided to replace the power reserve indicator found on all manually wound Lange 1 dials with a retrograde day of the week indicator. At the same time Lange designers inverted the display of the dials on the Lange 1's face, further freshening things up a bit. This means that the Daymatic has the watch face on the right of the dial, while the original Lange 1 has the dial on the left side of the face. Aside from the time and day of the week, the dial has a patented outsize date indicator and a subsidiary seconds dial.

Movement is the in-house made A. Lange & Sohne L021.1 automatic made up of 426 parts with a 50 hour power reserve. Decoration is on par with brand expectation. I haven't seen the automatic rotor decoration, but I will next month when the watch is officially unveiled at SIHH 2010 in Geneva. The Lange 1 Daymatic will arrive in a 39.5mm wide case, made out of either 18k yellow gold, pink gold, or platinum - with a matching alligator strap of course. dial is specially toned silver and beautifully finished. Expect price to be in the $50,000 and up range.

Ariel Adans publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: 2010, A Lange Sohne, ALangeSohne, automatic, Daymatic, Lange 1, Lange1, SIHH, watch

A. Lange & Sohne Petite Lange 1 Moonphase Limited Edition Watches

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

A Lange & Sohne Petite Lange 1 Moonphase Limited Edition Watches

The beautiful Petite Lange 1 gets a moon phase complication in this lovely decorated model for the ladies. Also known at the "little Lange 1," this very feminine watch collection extends the look of the Lange 1 watch dial layout over two types of mother of pearl faces in either a white color or a dark blue. Functions include the time, subsidiary seconds dial, out-size date, power reserve indicator, and moon phase indicator as part of the seconds dial. Powering the watch is A. Lange & Sohne's in-house made manually-wound L901.9 movement - a very complex little machine with over 400 parts and a 3 day power reserve.

The watch case is in 18k white gold, about 37mm wide, and 10mm thick. The bezel is lined with 58 brilliant cut diamonds totaling about 0.9 carats. The hands and markers on the watch are also in gold. In addition to the two mother of pearl dials, there is a solid silver face available. The pictured white version has a supple alligator strap, while the dark blue Petite Lange 1 has a stingray strap. The case back of the watch is covered with a sapphire crystal for a splendid view of the meticulously decorated movement.

Each watch is very attractive and still sophisticated. One of the most beautiful women's watches, it is as much artistically designed as it is a serious horological item of interest and exclusivity. Each version of these A. Lange & Sohne Petite Lange 1 Moonphase watches is limited to 150 pieces.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Gallery: A. Lange & Sohne Petite Lange 1 Moonphase

Tags: a lange sohne, ALangeSohne, lady, lange 1, Lange1, moon phase, MoonPhase, petite, timepiece, watch, womens

Watches & Politics Collide In The 2009 A. Lange & Sohne Lange 1 Time Zone Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

You could probably look at the dial of this beautiful Lange 1 Time Zone watch and not identify anything out of the ordinary. You'd see the two watch faces, the larger showing local time, and the smaller one displaying the time of one of 24 other time zones. You'd see the day and night indicators nicely integrated into each watch face, and you'd also notice A. Lange & Sohne's iconic Out-Size Date window as well as "up" - "down" power reserve meter. Well there is something different about this world time watch.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made a decision in 2007 that literally took Venezuela off the map, the GMT watch reference city map that is. One of his less popular decisions was to give Venezuela its own time zone that is 30 minutes earlier that it used to be. For this reason, the capital city of Venezuela, Caracas, could no longer serve as a reference city for that particular time zone between New York City and Rio de Janeiro. Thus, the new reference city for this time zone has been chosen by A. Lange & Sohne to be Santiago, Chile. Frankly, I think Santiago has a nicer sounding name than Caracas, so this is a good thing.

This also points to the fact that watch makers are obsessed with details and keeping current on world events, with A. Lange & Sohne taking the lead, at least when it comes to time zones. Other facts about this Lange 1 Time Zone watch include the fact that the 42mm wide case is constructed from 18k pink gold. The movement is the carefully made in-house Lange L031.1 manually-wound movement with a 72 hour power reserve. The dial is a solid grayed silver, and the strap is brown crocodile.

Ariel Adams publishes the watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: a. lange sohne, A.LangeSohne, caracas, lange 1, Lange1, santiago, soehne, time zone, timepiece, TimeZone, watch