It’s not every day you see an A. Lange & Sohne watch in honey gold, but this is one anniversary that deserves the honour.
It’s not every day you see an A. Lange & Sohne watch in honey gold, but this is one anniversary that deserves the honour.
In case you were thinking that A. Lange & Sohne has always produced watches that straddle the line between daring design and classically elaborate horology, it has not always been the case. When Ferdinand Adolph Lange founded Lange in 1845, the company’s ethos leaned towards the latter, with highly complicated pocket watches. The brand then ceased to exist following thesecond world war, but its revival decades later ushered in a new age of watchmaking, both for the renamed A. Lange & Sohne and the watchmaking world. For, in 1994, WalterLange and Gunter Blumein presented a completely new collection of wristwatches, which we recognise as the iconic Lange 1, Saxonia, Arkade and Tourbillon Pour le Merite. And that momentous year is what the watchmaker is celebrating, with a limited edition Lange 1 Time Zone in Honey Gold.
It’s anyone’s guess why the company didn’t select any of the aforementioned models to celebrate this 22-year anniversary, but the Lange 1 Time Zone is nonetheless a wonderful choice. Besides, itsconstruction remains faithful to the golden ratio used in Lange 1 timepieces. It has always been a popular model thanks to its useful second time zone complication, and by eschewing the conventional world map design found on many world time watches in favour of a city ring, the Lange 1 DNA is kept intact.
What makes this edition special is the case material. Honey gold is Lange’s very own 18K gold alloy and there is no other quite like it. Not only is it harder than most gold alloys used in watches, with a hardness rating of 300 Vickers (as opposed to anything between 150 and 290 Vickers, which is more common), its colour is also unique in that it has the lustrous sheen of yellow gold but the warmth of rose gold. A perfect hybrid for who find yellow gold too flashy and rose gold to be too feminine. It’s also incredibly rare. The watchmaker uses this material sparingly, reserving it only for extremely exclusive models – most notably the Lange 1 Honey Gold and last year’s 1815 “200th Anniversary F.A. Lange”.
The case remains the same 41.9mm size as the regular Lange 1 Time Zones, but there are other subtle differences in this commemorative model. Instead of Berlin, the Central European Time is now represented by Dresden, which was where Lange and Blumein unveiled the 1994 pieces. Fun fact: The date windows on all Lange watches are always set to 25, Special to A. Lange & Sohne and used sparingly in its watches, the honey gold alloy bridges the glitz of yellow gold and the femininity of rose gold. because it was on the 25th of October in that momentous year that daily newspapers covered the event.
The GMT indicator has been changed to blue instead of red, and the markers surrounding the second time zone at four o’clock, as well as the dots between the cities, have made the same change from black, making them slightly more distinct on the dial. The dial is solid silver, which helps the honey gold appliques pop.
Running under all this polished beauty is the handwound in-house Calibre L031.1 which, as is typical of all A. Lange & Sohne movements, has an untreated German silver plate, a hand-engraved balance cock and an intermediate-wheel cock. A total of 417 parts keeps it all together, and a power reserve of 72 hours will let it last through a weekend trip without requiring winding. It will be limited to just 100 pieces.
