A Lange & Söhne are celebrating the 200th birthday of their founder F. A. Lange this year. To honour him, A. Lange & Söhne has released the 1815 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst limited edition watch. This grey dial Lange and Sohne is one of the most beautiful watches I have seen lately from the house of the German watchmakers. The Ref. 730.048F features a greyish hand engraved dial with a large tourbillon. The details that make this watch so special can be found both on the inside and outside.
The most unique element of this watch is the dial. It features the striking “tremblage” engraving which has almost become the signature trait of the Handwerkskunst collection. By using a fine tipped steel engraving tool called burin, the artist has to make thousands of tiny incisions on the surface of the metal. This gives the black-rhodiumed pink gold dial a fine uniform and granular feel. The numerals and the brand’s logo have a glossy mirror-finish to them. Even the tourbillon bridge is black-polished, using a process that is very time-consuming.
The A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst will be produced in a limited edition of only 30 pieces. It comes on a reddish-brown coloured hand-stitched alligator leather strap.
‘Handwerkskunst’ in German means artisanship. But in terms of A. Lange & Söhne, it means the most refined and detailed design and finishing techniques. It means the most mysterious and unusual of engraving methods. The 1815 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst is only the fifth timepiece to be released in their Handwerkskunst collection.
The A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Tourbillon which was released in 2014 shares a number of similarities with this watch. The watch comes in a case size measuring 39.5 mm in width and 11.1 mm in height. This is unusual size for a case that encompasses a tourbillon. The large circular cut-out at 6’o clock features both the tourbillon and a blue running seconds hand. The grey dial Lange and Sohne tourbillon has two very special complications. Lange was the first watchmaker in 2008 to create a tourbillon with a stop-seconds device. The device stops the tourbillon’s rotation when the crown is pulled out to set the time. This helps in setting the time on the watch, more precisely. The second complication takes this even further by resetting the seconds hand to zero when the crown is pulled out. This is called as the ‘Zero-Reset complication’. Both the complications together, lets the user set the time up to an accuracy of 1-second, as claimed by Lange.
Thegrey dial Lange and Sohne watch is powered by the very same L102.1 caliber which features the above mentioned tourbillon. It is a manually winding in-house manufactured movement having 72 hours of power reserve. The hand-assembled movement is made of untreated German silver plates and bridges. The all-new designed three quarter plate is a hallmark of A. Lange & Söhne. It has a distinct granular surface with hand-engraved inscriptions which can be viewed through the transparent case back.
*Words by Yogen Bobde
