(Bloomberg) -- A. Lange & Sӧhne, first founded in 1845 and officially relaunched in 1994, is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its first chronograph, the Datograph, with a limited-edition model. The 18K yellow gold watch features finishes and dial decorations not found on any other Lange timepiece and is outfitted with a new chronograph movement.
“Only our absolute experts work on the Handwerkskunst watches,” says Wilhelm Schmid, CEO of the Glashütte, Germany based brand, referring to the brand’s elite line of “Craftmanship” watches. “The finishers, engravers, and watchmakers are all top-notch.”
The new watch’s dial is crafted using the tremblage engraving technique. Starting with a solid 18K yellow gold disc, the engraver carves out the material surrounding and in between all the numerals, letters, and other indexes. Once that’s completed, the engraver uses a pointed burin tool to create hundreds of minute indentations over the surface. The technique produces a finely detailed visible texture that, deceptively, appears matte from afar.
The tremblage engraving technique is “very difficult when you have very little room to work with,” says Schmid. “You always have to apply the same pressure - you go seven times over the same point, and then you move to the next point and do it seven times again. If you don’t apply it with the same amount of pressure, you will produce a shadow on the dial where you don’t want it.” After its tremblage engraving, the dial surface is coated with a rhodium finish - black on the main dial and light gray on the subdials. Then each gold numeral, letter, minute and seconds indicator is individually polished to a high shine.
No less attention is given to decorating the watch’s new hand wound chronograph movement. The Datograph Handwerkskunst watch features Lange’s third chronograph movement, the calibre L951.8, which combines features of the first two iterations. It “is almost like a mixed breed between the first- and second-generation movements," Schmid explains. The Roman numerals on the new Datograph Handwerkskunst’s dial harken back to the first Datograph.
Visible through the watch’s sapphire crystal caseback, the calibre L951.8 is painstakingly finished and features black-polished chronograph levers and a bas-relief engraving on its balance cock. Black polish is not actually black, but it makes the metal appear black when viewed from a certain angle. “When you shine light on a surface, the angle at which the light goes in equals the angle in which the light is reflected,” says Schmid. “With black polishing, the surface is so even and so condensed that when the light comes from the top, it looks totally black because there is no reflection.” The polishing of each part can take days, and if any small imperfection in the metal, or its polishing, comes up at the last moment, “it’s waste and days of work are gone,” Schmid says. “That’s why we don’t do black polishing very often.”
The bas-relief engraving on the movement’s balance cock carries historical significance for the brand. The filigreed vine motif is similar to engravings on Lange’s early pocket watches, whose movement’s bridges or balance cocks were hand engraved. Since each of the Datograph Handwerkskunst watches will be hand engraved with this vine motif, no two of them will look exactly alike. “They’re truly individual, because no engraver can make it exactly the same twice,” Schmid explains. “They will all look a little bit different, like handwriting.”
While only 25 Datograph Handwerkskunst timepieces will be made, Schmid estimates that it will take a good two and a half years to produce all of them. “We hope to get out a watch a month, but there may be months where we have no watch,” he says, “it’s unfortunate, but that’s high-end watchmaking.” The watches will only be sold to established A. Lange & Sӧhne collectors, and are price upon request. “This watch deserves a collector who can fully and comprehensively understand and appreciate how much work goes into these timepieces,” Schmid said. The lucky collector who buys one may also have to be very patient.
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