By Harlan Chapman-Green
Lange loves to make statement watches, it also loves to make statements about its watches, for this one they claim it to be a scientific observation watch, although it certainly is accurate enough to be useful for scientific experiments I am fully convinced that no laboratory anywhere in the world would have the budget to spare for a watch which is going to be produced in a limited run of 100 pieces and will probably cost around the $85,000 mark.
This is a seriously accurate watch, one of the reasons for this is because of an invention made by Lange several years ago. The Constant Force system is designed to remove the effects of torque which vary depending on the status of the winding system. When the watch is fully wound it will release more of its power because of the stresses on the spring. As the watch unwinds it’ll lose power more quickly which affects the running speed and, therefore, the accuracy of the watch. The Constant Force system eliminates the steep curve of torque delivery (which will come in especially handy on the 31 watch with its entire month of power).
Watches such as the Terraluna, the 31 and the Grand Complication are actually extremely large pieces to behold, but of course, the press photos can’t show us a good representation of the size (whenever I see watches online and then in person it always surprises me how different they actually seem to be sized compared to what I expected). Mechanics aside, the reason Lange doesn’t offer many small pieces is because it wasn’t around for the smaller is the better trend of the sixties watch market. After Lange was taken over by the Russians in 1945, the company closed its doors until 1994, so it missed out on all those small pieces. This watch is 39.9mm in diameter, so it’s still a pretty modern size, but just a little bit smaller and sleeker than other pieces.
The watch lasts a total of 42 hours when fully wound and has a power reserve style new to A.Lange & Söhne, this type changes colour when there is only 10 hours of power left. Lange usually uses Up/Down power reserves, but this is still a pretty stylish way of doing it. This watch is yet more evidence that Lange is on top form when it comes to innovation, it’s truly fantastic.
For more info, please visit alange-soehne.com
HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN – CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
A keen bass guitar player, Harlan enjoys all the perks modern watchmaking technologies the industry has to offer. Although you might catch him sampling Omegas or the odd Rolex, Harlan loves all things Haute Horology, with his three favourite brands being Breguet, A.Lange & Söhne and Vacheron Constantin. He hopes to study timekeeping more in depth someday and will never be able to thank his father enough for introducing him to the industry. You can follow him on Instagram Read his articles here
