A. Lange & Söhne

Salon Les Montres: Lange & Söhne

 

The Salon Les Montres is organized every year during the last quarter by the Parisian AD located on the left bank of the city and this year again, the exhibition took place in the same building on the St Germain square. This kind of event gives the ability to the attendees to browse the current collection of the brands sold by the AD including Lange.

in fact, this Salon was the last opportunity to see the 2012 collection in Western Europe before the end of the year because as you know, Lange will not participate to the Salon Belles Montres at the end of the month and I regret it.

Anyway, I decided to participate to the cocktail on last Wednesday evening to be able to take some pictures before taking the train for Salon QP the day after.

Let's start with some pictures of the showcases and of the exhibition:

The posters give some details about the main features of the Lange watches. They are clearly dedicated to people who discover the brands.













I wished to take some pictures to do a balanced mix between the 2012 and the previous years collections.

This Saxonia Dual Time was presented at the SIHH 2011. It is a very classic two timezones watch. Second timezone is set thanks to the pushers on the left side of the case.

Sadly, the watch uses a central rotor movement. Even if it is nicely made, I much prefer the 3/4 rotor movement only available now with the two automatic calendar watches.

The watch is balanced but lacks of character to be really attractive IMHO. But on the other hand, its effective design may seduce people who look for a readable and useful watch.

A "similar" complication but a totally different method to perform it. The Lange 1 Timezone has a busy dial inspired by the worldtimer watches. It is a watch I like more and more especially in this version or with the PG case and the slate dial. The fact that it uses a handwind movement doesn't give me any hesitation when I compare it with the Saxonia.

The two night&day indicators decorate the dial thanks to the blue curves:

One of my favourite Lange watches. The Richard Lange in PG case... is it the big second hand or the pure dial? I don't know but each time I'm totally under the charm of this watch. I don't know why I don't have it in my collection! Maybe because I was expecting a WG version...

The Handwind Saxonia is the entry-level watch of the collection. It features the movement of the former 1815:

A nice dial but with less character than with the 1815 even if the applied indexes bring volume. An elegant and simple watch.

We already talked about the new 1815 chronograph yesterday.

Its big asset is the increased power reserve thanks to the removal of the maltese cross on the barrel top of the movement.

The balance wheel counterweights are the easiest way to recognize the movement of the new 1815 compared with the previous version which used balance screws:

Case diameter is perfect for my wrist:

The new Datograph Up&Down takes also advantage of the enhanced power reserve... and so it gets a power reserve display. Located at the bottom of the dial, it preserves the famous datograph triangle made of the subdials and the big date display. Devil is in the details, the date window was slightly enlarged (by only 4%) to keep the harmony of the proportions.

Case diameter is 41mm vs 39mm for the previous version. These 2 extra mm can be felt visually speaking especially due to the removal of the roman numerals:

11 months after the SIHH, I think that the new Grand Lange 1 is my fav 2012 novelty from Lange.

Its balanced dial, its slenderness, its elegance, its new movement powered by a single barrel make this watch a very worthy evolution of the "classic" Lange 1. Question now is to know if additional complications will come in this new context.

Same story than with the Datograph Up&Down: the date window was enlarged to get a harmonious dial! This window is the largest of the whole Lange collection:

Thanks to the lovely lady from Lange, I can post you a wristshot of the automatic Lady's watch. I think that proposing it with an automatic movement is a clever move by Lange. The MOP dial is very nice.

I would like to thank a lot the Lange Team of Western Europe for the warm welcome and the time spent with me. Shooting all these watches on a 20cm diameter table was not an easy task but thanks to their support, I could prepare this report!

Fx

This message has been edited by foversta on 2012-11-13 14:47:48