We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, there will always be a special place in our hearts reserved for A. Lange & Söhne. Since their resurrection in the early nineties, the Saxon watchmaker has proven to be one of the most consistent watchmakers in the world, seemingly immune to trends or economic crises. Even at the annual SIHH, where trends and shifting market tastes can be all too visible, A. Lange & Söhne is typically the most constant, being innovative without repeating themselves. And if ever they did (and they actually do), the German watchmaker always fosters their horological “signature.” Indeed, there is no mistaking an A. Lange & Söhne timepiece for anything else. Case in point is the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar, which first made its bows at the 2012 SIHH.

Basically, the Manufacture from Saxony took their iconic LANGE 1 and ran with it, positioning a calendar display outside the hour and minute circle in an astonishingly neat little package that made any lingering issues about readability moot and irrelevant. Truly, this must be seen to be believed, despite the numerous displays provided by a perpetual calendar, the dial is exceptionally well organized. The date, day, moon phase and leap year are displayed in an overlap-free arrangement outside the hour and minute dials. Indeed, the indication of the months on a peripheral ring not only assures outstanding readability but also preserves the classic dial architecture of the LANGE 1. And it now comes in white gold.

To accomplish this, the manufactory’s calibre designers came up with the very first rotating peripheral month ring ever implemented in a wristwatch. An innovation so groundbreaking the company filed a patent for it. Further, the month ring, the large date, the retrograde day, the aperture leap year, and the moon-phase indication, are all jumping indications, meaning each display moves instantaneously, and can thus, never be interpreted incorrectly. In fact, the calendar has been designed in such a way that it need only be advanced by one day in the year 2100, that’s 86 years from now. And the moon-phase will ever run true of 122.6 years before it also needs to be corrected by one day.

So dogged were the designers in their objective that nothing should obstruct the legibility of the indications that the tourbillon, normally the crown jewel of most watches, had to, literally, take a back seat. Just like the 2012 platinum model, the integration of the calendar on the dial of this white gold version is so harmonious one tends to forget about the tourbillon, that is until a modest inscription on the dial all but proclaims it. Aside from that, the dial provides no further clues regarding the technical complexity of the timepiece; which, really, is all in keeping with being “Teutonic.”

The escapement can, thus, be admired in all its glory from the caseback. There, the filigreed cage rotates about its axis once a minute, and combined with the proprietary Lange balance spring, it assures the movement an extremely high degree of rate accuracy. Both components are exactly matched to one another to achieve optimized precision at the movement’s rated frequency of 21,600 semi-oscillations per hour. Coupled with the patented stop-seconds mechanism, it is now possible to instantly block the balance inside the tourbillon cage at any time by pulling the crown, thus allowing the watch to be set to one-second accuracy.

Typical Lange quality finishing proliferate the lavishly decorated movement that includes a heavy 21K gold central rotor with a platinum centrifugal mass on its outer periphery to boost its torque and momentum. It is embossed at the middle with the A. Lange & Söhne signature. But the coup de grace has to be the flawless diamond end-stone that serves as a bearing for the tourbillon; a reminder of the historic Lange pocket watches that used to belong to the high-end “1A” category. Assembling all of which falls to only one watchmaker, a task so complex it takes a month to complete. Making the new Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar in white gold yet another example of how A. Lange & Söhne is at the pinnacle of fine watch making.