A. Lange & Söhne first made its name in the watchmaking industry when Dresden watchmaker Ferdinand Adolph Lange established his manufacture in 1845. While his precious pocket watches remain highly coveted among collectors all over the world, the company nearly vanished in the course of time. In 1990, Walter Lange, Ferdinand Adolph Lange’s great-grandson, relaunched the brand. Today, Lange crafts only a few thousand wristwatches per year, predominantly in gold or platinum. In 2024, the marque is adding to its Datograph collection with new editions of the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold “Lumen”
Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold “Lumen”
At Watches and Wonders 2024, 25 years after the launch of the Datograph, A. Lange & Söhne has introduced a lustrous new interpretation: the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold “Lumen” – a sophisticated timepiece combining a flyback chronograph with a precise jumping minute counter, perpetual calendar and tourbillon with a stop-seconds mechanism ‒ presented for the first time in Lange-exclusive honey gold (Honeygold) and as a “Lumen” version, limited to 50 watches.
Not only does the timepiece distinguish itself thanks to its ingenuous mechanisms but also because of the lucid arrangement of the displays, translating technical finesse into an exceptional design language. Comprising an equilateral triangle formed by the Lange outsize date in a framed twin aperture beneath 12 o’clock and the two subsidiary dials, the dial architecture is a well-organised model of clarity, despite the abundance of displays. The subsidiary seconds dial, the day of the week and the day/night indicator are located on the left-hand side, while the precise jumping minute counter, the month and the leap year can be found on the right. The moon-phase display at 6 o’clock is harmoniously embedded in the ensemble. The semi-transparent dial and the luminous coating make the displays and functions glow. The darker the surroundings, the more prominent the luminous elements appear.
The evolved manufacture calibre L952.4 beats at the heart of the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon Honeygold “Lumen”: it consists of 684 parts and is assembled twice. The classic column-wheel chronograph is equipped with a freely oscillating Lange balance spring as well as a Lange balance wheel with eccentric poising weights, assuring excellent rate stability across the entire power reserve of 50 hours. It is calibrated to a frequency of 18,000 semi-oscillations per hour (2.5 hertz), allowing measurements with an accuracy of one fifth of a second ‒ in the light of the minute scale featuring an impressive total of 300 markers. Typical Lange quality hallmarks such as bridges made of untreated German silver, polished gold chatons, and blued screws can be admired through the sapphire-crystal caseback.
The dimensions of the watch remain unmodified. With a diameter of 41.5 millimetres, the honey-gold case boasts a height of 14.6 millimetres. This watch is the sixth model of the limited “Lumen” edition, and subsequent to the Zeitwerk Honeygold “Lumen” launched in 2021, only the second model that combines the particular hardness and incomparable resplendence of honey gold with the luminous “Lumen” coating.
