Getting Your Hands On The 2017 A. Lange & Söhne Collection
For those of you eager to get your hands on the 2017 A. Lange & Söhne collection, the haute manufacturer from Germany has organized the “Novelty Tour”, providing you with an advance opportunity to see, touch, and try on the new timepieces months before they start trickling into stores for good. Let’s have a look at the pieces currently on tour in major capitals at A. Lange & Söhne boutiques and retailers:
The 1815 Annual Calendar, a manually wound model with an analogue date, features the classic good looks of the “1815” family: blue-steeled hands, black Arabic numerals and a peripheral railway-track minute scale, all providing a clean contrast with the solid-silver argenté-coloured dial. The moon phase display, accurate for 122.6 years, is integrated into the subsidiary seconds (with stop seconds) dial at 6 o’clock. Calendar indications are read with golden hands in two subdials, with the day and date on the left and the month on the right. 
As an annual calendar, manual correction will be required every March 1st. With this model, all indications can be collectively advanced with the button at 2 o’clock; separate corrections for the day, month and moon phase can also be made with three recessed push-pieces; and for the first time in a Lange calendar model, the date can also be advanced separately with an additional recessed push piece.
Equipped with the superbly decorated hand-wound Lange manufacture calibre L051.3 with a power reserve of 72 hours when fully wound, the 1815 Annual Calendar is presented in a round 40 mm x 10.1 mm (height) case with an alligator leather strap. Priced at EUR37,800 in pink or white gold.
In a round 38.5 mm x 10.2 (height) case, this new Lange 1 Moon Phase features a solid silver dial, black, argenté or rhodié, that displays hours and minutes, an outsize date, a power reserve indicator, and a moon phase in the subsidiary seconds dial (with stop seconds). And introduced for the first time, the moon-phase display is combined with a day/night indicator, perceived by the varying blue hues and star-filled or star-less background of the celestial disc. The disc makes one revolution every 24 hours while the separate moon pursues its orbit in the foreground, tracking the lunar cycle with an average duration of 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 3 seconds, accurate for 122.6 years. Both the celestial disc and the moon are made in solid gold.
Equipped with the new L.121.3 manufacture calibre, this is Lange’s 20th calibre with a moon phase display. Based on the manually-wound L121.1 Lange 1 movement introduced two years ago, it maintains the twin mainspring barrel with power reserve of 72 hours, and a jumping outsize date display. The integration of the 70 parts required for the moon phase display has resulted in an only slightly larger calibre.
A button allows for quick date corrections while a recessed push-piece corrects the moon phase display. The Lange 1 Moon Phase is proposed in platinum, priced at EUR52,400, or white or pink gold priced at EUR39,800.
The Little Lange 1 Moon Phase, in centre stage above, is presented in a 36.8 mm x 9.5 mm (height) case crafted in pink gold, 1.7 mm smaller than the Lange 1 Moon Phase. The solid gold dial, argenté and guillochéd, features pink gold hand and appliques. Asymmetric, the dial shows off the characteristic jumping outsize date display, and two gold moons on the lunar disc that is also argenté-coloured. Indications of hours, minutes and subsidiary seconds with stop seconds, along with a power reserve indicator, complete the dial display. Again, only a one-day correction will be required every 122.6 years. Equipped with the manually wound Lange manufacture calibre L121.2 with a power reserve of 72 hours when fully wound, this timepiece is perfect with its white alligator strap with pink-gold prong buckle. EUR38,800.
Presented left and right in the same photo are the white and pink gold versions of the Saxonia in cases measuring 35 mm x 7.3 mm in height. Those gorgeous dials are solid silver, faced with white mother of pearl, wearing rhodiumed gold or pink gold hands and appliques. Ah, and those white alligator straps!
Equipped with the manually wound Lange manufacture calibre L941.1 with functions of hours, minutes and subsidiary seconds with stop seconds, this model offers a power reserve of 45 hours when fully wound. Priced at EUR16,600 for either version.
All the above timepieces are currently in Paris at the A. Lange & Söhne boutique, 19 rue de la Paix, until May 24, with a further showing at the nearby Maison Bucherer, 12 boulevard des Capucines, from May 25 – 31, 2017.
Not yet ready to be part of the Novelty Tour are the Tourbograph Perpetual “Pour le Mérite”, shown above, featuring a perpetual calendar, chronograph with rattrapante function, one-minute tourbillon and fusée-and-chain transmission, in a limited edition of 50 platinum-cased watches;
and the Zeitwerk Decimal Strike crafted in the brand’s exclusive honey gold, shown below, boasting two differently tuned gongs to indicate full hours and ten-minute intervals with a stunning tremblage engraving on the two hammers and hammer bridge on the dial, limited to 100 pieces.
As a consolation, we are showing them to you here with Haute Time photographer Alex Teuscher’s superb photos. When they do arrive in stores, they will be priced at EUR480,000 and EUR121,000 respectively.
