A. Lange & Söhne is a Manufacture with a long-term vision and that is reflected in its output. Originally founded in 1845, the firm was bombed a century later during World War II and then rose from the ashes in 1990, launching its iconic Lange 1 in 1994. The timepiece received universal acclaim on its release – a sufficiently rare occurrence to be noteworthy – despite the fact that the brand had disappeared from view after not having produced a single watch for the best part of 50 years.
Eleven years after the advent of the Lange 1, a first travel version was introduced in 2005. Its name says a lot about A. Lange & Söhne’s restrained, straightforward, no-nonsense and timeless philosophy: the piece is simply called Time Zone. Priority is given to local time, displayed on the larger of the two offset dials that are one of the Manufacture’s style signatures. A second pair of hands indicates the time in a second time zone on the small subdial set aside for the seconds display on the original Lange 1.
Choose your time
The second time tibe can easily be selected using a pusher and a rotating ring at the edge of the dial bearing the names of cities. If the wearer is abroad and wishes to set local time as their ‘home’ time during their stay, an ingenious system serves to reserve the two time displays, with the main dial and large date display set to the destination abroad and the subdial set either to their usual home time or to any other time zone in the world, as they wish. This ability to reset local time provides further justification for the tagline that accompanied the launch of the Lange 1 Time Zone in 2005: “Born in Saxony – at home around the world”.
The dynamic display, reversible at the push of a button, is a rarity in fine watchmaking; only Breguet’s Hora Mundi can boast the same feature. On the Lange 1 Time Zone, the inversion is made possible by means of a reference point on the ‘city’ ring and a mechanism that halts the hour hand on the subdial when the time zone pusher is pressed; the ‘home’ time previously displayed on the larger dial can then be set to become the new ‘local’ time simply by rotating the crown.
Daytime, night-time, and summer time
The Lange 1 Time Zone goes further still by including an even rarer if not unique marker: each primary and secondary time zone features its own day/night indicator. This dual complication is made necessary by the fact that both home and local time zone displays mark out 12 rather than 24 hours. The timepiece thus denotes daytime and night-time using small indicators that travel between light and dark sections, both for home time and for the time zone selected using the city ring.
Each time the pusher at 8 o’clock is pressed, the rotating city ring moves forward, advancing eastwards by one time zone; the hours hand for the second time zone also moves forward, automatically synchronising the former with the selected city. An applied marker at 5 o’clock on the time band dial (the arrow nearest the city ring) serves as a point of reference when adjusting the second time zone. Pressing the pusher 24 times completes the round-the-world trip. The second pusher at 10 o’clock is set aside for adjusting the majestic Large Date display, another of A. Lange & Söhne’s hallmarks.
Rare re-releases
The original 2005 model enjoyed a very long career, with no major updates until one in 2019 to mark the 25th anniversary of the Lange 1, the timepiece that provided the original inspiration. Only 25 of these grey gold versions with blued steel hands were made.
These soon sold out and were followed the next year (2020) by a model fitted with a new in-house calibre to celebrate the timepiece’s 25th anniversary. Additional information is provided by a summer time indicator located in a small aperture in the gold applique at 5 o’clock in the form of an arrow pointing to the reference city for the selected second time zone. If the window is red, the city in question follows Daylight Saving Time. If on the other hand the city doesn’t change its clocks, the arrow displays a pale background. The technical wizardry behind this indication uses an encoding system on the underside of the city ring.
In 2023 a new, non-limited-edition version was released in 950/1000 platinum with a rhodium-plated dial.
Lange 1 Time Zone
Case: yellow gold, rose gold or platinum, winding and time-setting crown, two pushers to adjust the Large Date and second time zone
Dimensions: diameter: 41.9mm; thickness: 10.9mm
Movement: Hand-wound in-house Calibre Lange L031.1, 417 components, 54 jewels, 21,600vph, 72-hour power reserve, hand-assembled and hand-decorated, precision adjusted in five positions, untreated German silver plates and bridges, hand-engraved balance-cock and intermediate wheel bridge;
Functions: home time with day-night indicator (hours, minutes, small seconds display with stop-seconds mechanism, second time zone (hours, minutes) with day/night indicator and large date display for home time, ‘AUF/AB’ (‘wound up/down’) power-reserve indicator
Dial: champagne silver-toned or rhodium-plated solid silver; applied gold hour-marekrs; yellow gold, rose gold, rhodium-plated gold or blued steel hands
Strap: hand-sewn alligator leather strap, gold or platinum clasp
Launch year: 2005
This year, GMT Magazine and WorldTempus have embarked on an ambitious project: summarising GMT and Worldtimer watches since 2000 in The Millennium Watch Book - Travel Watches, a beautifully laid-out coffee table book. This article is an excerpt of the book. The Millennium Watch Book - Travel Watches is available for preorder in both French and English here.
