BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
Watches & Wonders Geneva is in full swing at the moment. I’m sitting here in my hotel room feeling pretty shattered but having just come back from a delicious meal cooked right in front of me. If you want to see that and more, head over to our Instagram page where we’re covering as much as we can.
In the meantime, here in the traditional world of written words, we’re looking closer at A. Lange & Söhne. The Saxon brand’s Director of Manufacturing, Tino Bobe, playfully announced to us that A. Lange & Söhne is presenting 100% more novelties this year compared to 2023. Here are the two new pieces.
Datograph Up/Down ref. 405.028
The first piece is a new version of the Datograph which A. Lange & Söhne is revisiting this year. There are five variations of the Datograph on sale currently, including this one. The old model with just the chronograph is gone, and now the simplest one has the chronograph and a power reserve, while some have more complexities such as a tourbillon. This model isn’t the Datograph in its most “basic” form. The difference is the blue colour combination, which A. Lange & Söhne hasn’t done before on this collection, the blue is paired with a 41mm x 13.1mm 18k white gold case. Inside is the manually-wound calibre L951.6, which is made of 451 impeccably-finished parts with a power reserve of 60 hours and a 2.5Hz beat rate.
A. Lange & Söhne doesn’t officially release prices any more, but I would expect this to be north of CHF100,000.
Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold “Lumen” 740.055FE
The next addition to A. Lange & Söhne’s super-rare “Lumen” collection of watches, and the even rarer Honeygold model, is here in the form of the über complex tourbillon chronograph with a perpetual calendar and a moonphase thrown in. There’s also the smoked sapphire dial, which allows the luminous parts below its surface to shine through. Honestly, these “Lumen” models have to be seen to be believed, and we didn’t even get to see it in total darkness.
Inside it is the L952.4, which is made of 684 components and has a power reserve of 50 hours. It’s a slight improvement over the calibre found in the model we tested a few years back, but I honestly cannot remember what the improvements are right now. It does have all of the benefits of that movement, though, so you should read my review of a different version of this watch once you’re done here.
This model is limited to 50 examples worldwide. I believe I overheard correctly that the price of one of these is over CHF600,000, which would be due to the complexity of the Honeygold case but don’t quote me on that. Instead, to get a quote, contact A. Lange & Söhne.
There’s much more still to come from Watches & Wonders Geneva!
