Introducing the 2020 A. Lange & Söhne “Homage to F. A. Lange” Collection in Honeygold

After the LVMH Watch Week in Dubai, a lifetime ago in January, and the recently concluded Geneva Watch Days, Watches & Wonders Shanghai (W&WSH) will only be the third physical fair of 2020. And much like Geneva Watch Days, the showcase in Shanghai will have to be a localized one, with the rest of the world interacting with the brands digitally.

A. Lange & Söhne, one of the fair’s eleven exhibitors, will be taking the opportunity at Shanghai to mark a grand milestone year in the legacy of the German watchmaker, “175 years of precision watchmaking in Saxony,” with three watches in homage to the father of Saxony’s watchmaking traditions, Ferdinand Adolph Lange. Therein, very appropriately, these three timepieces will join the small micro collection that has now bears the sobriquet, Homage to F. A. Lange. Two of the watches from the trio are familiar to us, however, there is a third that is completely new to Lange’s collection. All three watches are in Lange’s beloved Honeygold, a proprietary 18K gold alloy that’s said to have double the hardness of regular 18K gold.

1815 Thin Honeygold “Homage to F. A. Lange

Anthony de Haas, Director of Product Development at A. Lange & Söhne often speaks of their simple time-only watches as watches that they had to make. Because it was Walter Lange who often reminded Haas and the rest of the team that they should not only make big, bold grand complications all the time, but they should also create simpler pieces that will create the possibility for someone to afford themselves a Lange, who may not have the means for a grand complication.

The 1815 Thin Honeygold “Homage to F. A. Lange”, as unassumingly simple as it may seem, is rendered in Lange’s beloved Honeygold with its dial in white enamel. The reason why the watch may look familiar is because the 1815 family does have a time-only watch, save for the fact that the production version is a three-hander with a small running seconds at 6 o’clock.

1815 Thin Honeygold “Homage to F. A. Lange” uses a two-hand configuration, made possible by the Lange manufacture calibre L093.1. The movement is familiar to us and is otherwise found in the production versions of the Saxonia Thin. However, the rendition of the L093.1 used for the 1815 Thin Honeygold “Homage to F. A. Lange” is made different with its German silver three-quarter bridges decorated with a graining effect as opposed to the typical Glashütte ribbing.

The signature engraving on the balance cock of the movement is also ever so slightly different from the flourish we are used to seeing on these, with a new pattern and shallower engraving with a black-rhodium treatment. This black-rhodium treatment is also applied to every inscription made on the movement.

1815 Rattrapante Honeygold “Homage to F. A. Lange”

Within the present 1815 family there are several multi-complication watches that boast a Rattrapante. These watches are the 1815 Rattrapante Perpetual Calendar, the Tourbograph Perpetual “Pour le Mérite” and, of course, the Grand Complication. Which, therefore, makes the 1815 Rattrapante Honeygold “Homage to F. A. Lange” the watch in the present collection, to allow the Rattrapante complication center stage. Lange says that it is their sixth ever timepiece with the Rattrapante complication and the only one that has the said complication stand alone.

For this Lange has built a new movement, the Lange manufacture calibre L101.2. It seems to be of a modular construction, with borrowed knowhow from the pre-existing calibre L101.1 with the time mechanism making up the base and the rattrapante mechanism built over it.

The bridges on this movement are again grained as opposed to being decorated with Glashütte ribbing, along with the hand engraving on the balance cock, despite the matter that it’s not in complete view, and as well on the chronograph bridge, which are they black-rhodium treated.

Now yet another reason why the 1815 Rattrapante Honeygold “Homage to F. A. Lange” will be particularly sought after by Lange collectors is because along with all of the other firsts, this is the first instance that Lange has given a black dial to one of the watches in Honeygold.

Tourbograph Perpetual Honeygold “Homage to F. A. Lange”

Rounding up the trio being announced today is the Tourbograph Perpetual Honeygold “Homage to F. A. Lange”. Again, a familiar watch, first introduced in 2017, the 2020 version of the Tourbograph Perpetual Honeygold still boasts the combination of a fusée-and-chain transmission, a tourbillon, a rattrapante chronograph and a perpetual calendar.

This second variation of the Tourbograph Perpetual is the first of its kind in Honeygold paired with a black rhodiumed Honeygold dial where the numerals and scales have been raised from the dial itself to a height of 0.15mm, as opposed to be applied. The various levels of the are formed by having the dial assembled in five pieces: the dial ring, the three sub dials and the primary dial. Lange states that even the moon phase disc is in black rhodiumed Honeygold, with relief engraving done by hand to create strs which frame the chambered moons.

Turning the watch over we’re met with the Calibre L133.1 in fresh treatments that have formed a theme by now for the occasion: grained bridges and black rhodium treatment on the inscriptions as well as the hand engraving on the chronograph bridge.