Watches and Wonders 2022: Lange & Sohne Richard Lange Minute Repeater.
May 20, 2022,14:57 PM
The Richard Lange line certainly is one of my favorites among the different Lange & Sohne families.
The first Richard Lange, classic, simple, beautiful, then the Richard Lange Pour Le Mérite, with its hidden sophistication ( fusée and chan, enamel dial ) and ... The Jumping Seconds, in platinum, in 2017, and in white gold, in 2019 are indisputably superb choices.
This year, Lange comes with a masterpiece, sober, sublimely cold with its platinum case and its enamel dial, AND with one of the most prestigious complications, a minute repeater.
Truth to be told, it is one of the 6 greatest watches I could see at Watches and Wonders, this year.
The case is perfectly sized, for me, with a diameter of 39 mm and a height of 9, 7 mm, and is just 20 meters water resistant. Be careful when you wash your hands...
The white enamel dial is silky / milky, with a superb depth. The blue hands contrast very nicely but I would have maybe liked a bit more life, with a bigger touch of red than the very discreet small index at 60 minutes, just above the XII. A Red XII would have been perfect. Or white not, a blue one!
The Cal L122.1 is made of 415 parts, german silver ( as always for a Lange movement ), manual winding, 4 golden chatons,, beats at 21, 600 alternances per hour and offers a power reserve of 72 hours.
The hammers of the minute repeater are not only sublime, the sound they provide is matte albeit rich enough, at least from what I could hear on this video:
The regulator seems to be quite discrete but one of the very good points of this minute repeater is that the pause between the hours, the quarter and the minutes is eliminated. Concretely, you won't have to wait too long to hear the quarters or the minutes directly after the hours. It is not something specific to Lange, but it is not common, either.
Of course, I will, as soon as I can, test the acoustic qualities of this watch. But, as it is, I am in love.
One con, though...
- The retail price is super high, not to say way too high, a bit above 400, 000 Euros. Yes, you read well, alas. These super high priced watches seem to be a curious trend, lately...
Looking forward to reading your comments and thoughts,
The Richard Lange line certainly is one of my favorites among the different Lange & Sohne families. The first Richard Lange, classic, simple, beautiful, then the Richard Lange Pour Le Mérite, with its hidden sophistication ( fusée and chan, enamel dial ) ...
Love this one! As others have said, so simple and clean and yet hiding an amazing complication. The local boutique told me they're getting one this year and it's already spoken for (by someone with a much much larger watch budget than me 😂).
Beautiful watch: I like the “below the radar” approach, with only a small slider showing that you got something very special. Also the nearly “wet looking” aspect of the writing/inks on the dial makes it unique ❤️. You speak about regulator noise and if I...
This must be (without having seen it in real life) my favorite watch from Watches and Wonders. Very much "under the radar", and irresistably beautiful in it's visual simplicity. Sublime elegance!