Celebrating The Leap Year With A. Lange & Söhne

It’s Leap Year this year and today is the big day! With one extra day in the Gregorian calendar, discerning owners and enlightened admirers  celebrate one of the most appreciated grand complications brought to us by haute watchmakers: the Perpetual Calendar.

Known for its legendary Saxon precision and efficiency, A. Lange & Söhne presented two perpetual calendar models at the SIHH this year: the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon and the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar in its new colours of white gold and grey silver dial.

Despite their differences in function and dial display, the models share several features.  Their perpetual calendar displays all jump forward instantaneously to ensure easy reading at all times.  Both boast mechanisms that will require 1-day corrections on March 1^st  2100, year in which the Gregorian calendar omits the leap year and exceptionally skips February 29, and both have separate correctors for various functions including the moon-phase display, which will need to be corrected in 122.6 years.

A hand-engraved tourbillon is visible through their sapphire crystal casebacks that reveal the lavish decoration synonymous with the brand; the tourbillons are equipped with the patented stop-second mechanism that brings the balance wheel inside the tourbillon cage to an instant standstill when the crown is pulled, allowing the watch to be set with one second accuracy.

The 41.5 mm x 14.6 mm  Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon in a 100 piece limited platinum edition features a perpetual calendar, a column-wheel chronograph with flyback function, both clearly legible on the black solid silver dial, and tourbillon visible through the caseback. The balance of the 729-part manufacture caliber L952.5 has a frequency of 18,000 semi-oscillations per hour, meaning stop times are displayed with an accuracy of one-fifth of a second.

As for the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar, first presented in 2012, the 41.9 mm x 12.2 mm case of this 2016 version comes in white gold, with a grey solid silver dial that features the Lange outside date, retrograde day of the week, and unique arrangement of calendar display around the time indication, powered by the 624-part movement L082.1.

CEO Wilhelm Schmid told us back in 2013: “I could look at this moon disc forever – it is so deep.  I’m wearing it now.”  Adding in 2014: “this is probably the most discreet way to wear about a quarter of a million Euros”.

Photo Credit: Haute Time. For more information, please visit the official A. Lange & Söhne website. Follow Haute Time on Instagram to catch all of the new releases as they happen.