A. Lange & Söhne @ 1815 UP/DOWN

 A. Lange & Söhne is the sublimely perfect four-hand 1815 UP/DOWN with a power-reserve indicator reflects the style in its purest form. The number 1815 in its name refers to the birth year of the founder of Saxon precision watchmaking, Ferdinand A. Lange - its design is inspired by his legendary pocket watches. A. Lange & Söhne’s 1815 stands for noble understatement at the pinnacle of horology. Its three-day movement has now been paired with a power-reserve mechanism. In the new 1815 UP/DOWN, an additional blued-steel hand at 8 o’clock indicates how long the watch will continue to run before having to be rewound. The display with AUF for the fully wound and AB for the fully unwound movement is a traditional A. Lange & Söhne characteristic that dates back to a patent granted in 1879.

The principle employed in the 1815 UP/DOWN also relies on a patent filed by Otto Lange, one of the grandsons of the manufactory’s founder. His invention was specially conceived for slender watches: a planetary gear system integrated in the movement drives the display without requiring extra vertical space. Lange adopted the same approach for the power-reserve indicator of the 1815 UP/DOWN. On the plate side, two additional gold chatons in the three-quarter plate made of German silver refer to the presence of the power-reserve mechanism. Despite the supplementary 57 parts, the L051.2 manufacture movement has exactly the same dimensions as that of the 1815 without the UP/DOWN indicator: a height of 4.6 millimetres and a diameter of 30.6 millimetres. Beneath the hand-engraved balance cock, a classic screw balance and an indexless oscillator assure optimised rate accuracy together with a balance spring developed and manufactured in-house, which is calibrated to a frequency of 21,600 semioscillations per hour.

With its 245 parts lavishly finished by hand, manufacture calibre L051.2 features a host of hallmarks that underscore Lange’s watchmaking artistry: they include chamfered and polished edges, Glashütte ribbing on the three-quarter plate, gold chatons secured with blued screws, the polished endpiece of the escape-wheel cock, and winder wheels decorated with solarisation that are visibly integrated in the plate. The case and prong buckle of the 1815 UP/DOWN are crafted from 18-carat yellow, white, or pink gold; all model variations have an argenté dial made of solid silver. Superb legibility is guaranteed thanks to black numerals and blued-steel hands. With a railwaytrack minute scale, Arabic numerals, and symmetrically arranged subsidiary dials for the power-reserve indicator and the small seconds, the 1815 UP/DOWN pays tribute to the style elements of Lange’s acclaimed pocket watches, now transposed in a contemporary way to the dimensions of a wristwatch.