At this year’s virtual Watches & Wonders, A. Lange & Söhne debuted two watches with white gold cases. For each watch, the debuts represent their premier in the precious metal.
One, the Odysseus, was available strictly in its debut metal and is the first steel-cased sports watch for this Glashutte-based luxury watchmaker. The other is the ultra-complex Zeitwerk Minute Repeater, the world’s only watch that combines a mechanical jumping numerals display with a decimal minute repeater, which was previously only sold with a platinum case.
Odysseus
The Odysseus is now available in white gold 40.5mm case (the same diameter as the steel debut) and offered with an all-new integrated rubber strap or leather strap. The sporty-elegant timepiece with the large date and day display features a grey, newly textured dial (instead of the blue dial used for the steel model) within a highly sculptured case. And while the case metal and dial finishing are new, the Odysseus continues to be powered by the L155.1 Datomatic, an automatic movement that boasts fifty hours of power reserve.
Along with the precious metal case, the new strap options present A. Lange & Söhne fans two more options novel for this watchmaker. The rubber bracelet or brown leather strap on this first-ever sporty A. Lange & Söhne watch are both new, and both appear highly integrated with the case. They offer the wearer a lightweight conveyance for the somewhat heavier precious case.
A. Lange & Söhne has a placed luminous white-gold hands
and notched baton appliques on the dial, as we saw on the steel model. Alongside the large date and luminous hour markers, these carefully considered design elements ensure that the time and date are both exceedingly legible as viewed against the darker
Odysseus dial. A red 60 on the silvered flange ring is a nice accent. Specially sealed, tapered buttons for correcting the date and the day of week are arranged at 2 o’clock and 4 o’clock. As you’d expect from this top-tier luxury watchmaker, case and lug finish is superb, with newly brushed and polished surfaces enhancing the dial’s textured appearance.
Those familiar with this high-end maker know that the caliber’s name, Datomatic, stands for the combination of a date mechanism and automatic winding.
From the back of the watch you’ll see the Datomatic’s skeletonized and partially blackened rotor, set with a platinum mass to better assure dependable winding.
Also visible: the German silver plate decorated with Glashütte ribbing, the wave pattern engraved on the balance bridge and the screwed gold chaton above the escape wheel. Price: $40,600.
The Zeitwerk Minute Repeater
When debuted by A. Lange & Söhne in 2015, the platinum-cased Zeitwerk Minute Repeater was the world’s only watch to combine a mechanical jumping numerals display with a decimal minute repeater. In 2020, that still holds true, but now the watch is offered with a white gold case. Five years after the watch’s debut, it now comes in a limited edition of thirty pieces cased in 44.2mm x 14.1mm white gold with a deep-blue dial.
Among its many impressive attributes, the Zeitwerk Minute Repeater features a pusher mechanism rather than a slide for triggering the repeater.
A. Lange & Söhne designed the caliber to deliver its striking power directly from the mainspring barrel, which means there is no need for a slide to wind a separate spring. And since a pusher, unlike a slide, can be sealed, the watch is water-resistant up to 30 meters.
To read much more about the Zeitwerk Minute Repeater, click here. Price: 449,000 Euros. In the U.S., final price upon request.