Luminous

A. Lange & Sohne Zeitwerk Luminous Watch

Last year's awesome watch from German A. Lange & Sohne was the Lange Zeitwerk. A mechanical digital watch with jumping indicators for the minutes and hours. Style was totally retro cool, and the mechanics needed to make it work are much more difficult than you can fathom. One thing many people wanted the watch to have was luminous markers. But this was thought impossible given that they could not be charged by the light being hidden under the dial. Well the creative thinkers at Lange found a solution, and they have implemented it here in the new Lange Zeitwerk Luminous watch.

Basically they made the dial out of a tinted (smoked) sapphire crystal. The numerals all have luminant applied to them. The sapphire part of the dial is made so that it is not totally transparent, but light can enter easily to charge the luminant. When the indicators are displayed in the digital windows, they should be able to charge enough, provided that the watch has been exposed to enough light. Thus you have a lume version of the Lange Zeitwerk - clever.

Aside from that the watch retains the features that we love about standard Zeitwerk. It comes in a 42mm wide case in platinum and is part of a limited edition of just 100 pieces. Movement is the highly complex manually wound in-house made A. Lange & Sohne Caliber L043.1, with its double constant force escapements. Functions include the hours and minutes digitally, with a subsidiary seconds dial and a power reserve indicator. A beautiful watch with a great appeal somewhere between luxury gadget and traditional fine timepiece. Price is $91,200, and the watch is in platinum as mentioned.

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

Gallery: Lange Zeitwerk Luminous