German fine watchmaking stalwart A. Lange & Söhne has been in a platinum state of mind of late, with the new Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar now getting this most opulent of materials too. The platinum material is both restrained and opulent, since it can be mistaken for steel. The perpetual calendar is a great complication that delivers the day, date and month, without fuss or intervention – the complication automatically adjusts for months of all lengths, including February, and is nonplussed by leap years. Many perpetual calendars, such as the Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar platinum, also have a moon phase feature. Standard for haute-horlogerie perpetual clocks is they won’t need any corrections until the year 2100 when a leap will be skipped. The A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar has fit this criterion since its launch in 2021, and the platinum version is no different.
In a moment, we will discuss the skipped leap year. But first, let’s reintroduce the Lange 1 Perpetual calendar. It is particularly apt now, although we do wish the Glashütte manufacture would oblige us by making this model in steel or anything just a little less exclusive; A. Lange & Söhne is already extraordinarily exclusive, with a production run of approximately 5,000 watches annually. It is a pleasant surprise that the new Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar does not come in a limited edition. For reference, the launch model in white gold was limited to just 150 pieces, which was frustrating; it was doubly troubling because this was literally the first time A. Lange & Söhne created a wristwatch that put the perpetual calendar front-and-centre, without any other complication. As A. Lange & Söhne reminds us, there was also the Langematik Perpetual but that was in 2001, and was a beast of a different order. If you have been paying attention, the new Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar in platinum is now one of only two standard production perpetual calendars – without other complications – in the brand’s assortment.
The Darth is a platinum Lange 1 Perpetual calendar with a black dial made of solid silver. This is probably due to the red leap-year indicator. The watch is not a particularly threatening or tragic piece (despite the fact that many collectors will want to own one but won’t be able to) but it gives us a sense of dread. That is primarily because there are so few perpetual calendars out there, in any price category, that this latest A. Lange & Söhne example offers scant comfort. The watch shares all the same proportions and movement, the manual-winding calibre L021.3, as the existing A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1 perpetual calendar watches. More details can be found in our article about the white-gold model. As for the price, which we somewhat skirted, A. Lange & Söhne says this one is “on application,” which has been the case for a number of pieces recently.
For those of you who are long-time readers or follow WOW, I’m a big fan of the perpetual clock. The perpetual calendar is a quirky feature that attempts to track our position in the solar system. The perpetual calendar, which is the Gregorian clock, can be compared to a Rube Goldberg machine. It explains the mess of the skipped leap years, when an entire year is divisible not by 400 but 100. It is true that the Western calendar, whether it be solar or lunar, (or a combination of both), is much easier to use.
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