We established a trio of A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk watches recently, each of them has their own amazing sophistication, designed to draw the attention of specific types of collectors and fans, namely: the standard version and Striking Time in rose gold together with the Minute Repeater in platinum.
The three examples all have a very similar visual aesthetic at the very first beginning, anchored in A. Lange & Söhne’s completely nice mechanical jumping “digital” display – now a signature for the prestigious Glashütte-based watchmaker. Nevertheless, the comparison between each in feature set and price point are really much different, which is why it will do good to own them at once. It is necessary to take a minute to solve what makes their troubles different before we dive deeper into the minutiae that define each Zeitwerk
Let’s start from the first one, the “standard” variant is designed with a case size of 41.9mm and powered by Lange’s calibre L043.1, which displays the time through a series of rotating discs at 3 and 9:00 that “jump” from minute to minute, and hour to hour. While the second one–the Striking Time, which is coming with the size of 44.2mm, is a little hairs bigger than the standard model, a size increase which helps the added complications necessary for the larger L043.2 caliber which chimes the full and quarter hours as they arrive in two obviously different tones only while the chime is engaged.
You can see each of the hammer-like gongs fixed at 4 and 7:00, where they strike a carefully tensioned wire driven into the caseband. The third in our trio is the most complicated, and undoubted the apex of typical watch making expertise – which is probably why Lange chose to launch it specially in platinum.
There is something we need to bear in mind that it is quite significant for each dial prominently exhibits a power reserve indicator at 12:00. The power reserve indicator on the A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk Minute Repeater differs ever so slightly in that it carries a red dot indicating the minimum amount of remaining power required to activate the sonnerie.
However apart from the whole similarity in dial layout and case design, if there’s one common topic that unites these three replica watches are the actually heroic level of finishing that goes into each dial and movement. All the usual classical and typical signatures of an A. Lange & Söhne are here; the precision-beveled, polished, and striped movement bridges and the hand-engraved balance cock.
According the experience from the past, generally speaking, sonnerie watches such as these Zeitwerk models have deep roots not only in fine watch making, but the functions as well. Long before the complication was reserved for annuls of haute horology it was the only means accessible which could meet the deadline in full darkness.
