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.
The subject of the missed leap year will be discussed in due course, but for now we would like to reintroduce you to the Lange 1 Perpetual Calender. 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. The new Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar, despite its limited edition status, is not available in a single quantity. This is a pleasant surprise and one that should get you to sit up. 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.
Collectors refer to this platinum Lange 1 Perpetual Calender with its black dial as the Darth, probably because of the red leap year indicator. The watch is not threatening or tragic, 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. For more information, please read our article on 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. This quirky complication tracks our location in the solar systems, and tries to make sense of all the quirks that our orbit has. Perpetual calendars, like traditional mechanical watches, are often ridiculed as Rube-Goldberg machines. But the Gregorian Calendar, which perpetual clocks follow, is a metaphorical machine in itself. The skipped leap year occurs when a year is not divisible by 400 but is divided by 100. The Western calendar is easier to use than other calendars.
Click here to read the latest luxury watch reviews.