A. Lange & Söhne's Super-Limited New Watch Is Equal Parts Functional and Beautiful
Welcome to Dialed In, Esquire's weekly column bringing you horological happenings and the most essential news from the watch world since March 2020.
The Rattrapante function is something you’d normally associate with racy steel clunkers rather than elevated dress watches. Yet the rather nifty function that allows you to stop, record a time, and then continue timing without loss of data—“rattrapante” means literally “catch-up”—has in fact been around since the 1830s, when it was created for gentlemanly pocket watches. In the early 20th century, it was miniaturized for wristwatches. The key feature of a rattrapante is an additional center seconds hand which shadows the chronograph seconds hand until a button is pushed to time, say, a lap. Push the button again and the rattrappante hand rejoins the still running second hand. The operation can be repeated infinitely.
A. Lange & Söhne is Germany’s best-known luxury watchmaker, and arguably one of the finest in terms of expertise, design, and finishing. It certainly rivals the best that Switzerland has to offer. Founded in 1845 by Ferdinand Adolph Lange, the manufacture made timepieces to order, often for members of the royal court of Saxony, with a reputation for extremely polished pieces—in both senses. Lange was indeed typical of a unique decorative style that flourished in the city of Dresden until after World War II, when along with many others, Lange was subsumed by the DDR and the Eastern Bloc’s nationalized industries. It was only in 1995, after German reunification that Walter Lange, great grandson of Adolph Lange, vowed to resurrect the brand with a commitment to the highest levels of watchmaking for which the brand—and the city—was once known.
This week, Lange & Söhne added the rattrapante function to its legendary 1815 family with a 200-piece edition in a platinum case that’s 41.2mm in diameter. Blued hands hover over an elegant silvered dial that is marked out with a traditional railway track perimeter and bold roman numerals. An in-house, hand-wound movement visible through the sapphire crystal case back—the L101.2—manages, despite the complexity of the 365-part workings, to keep the overall depth of the watch to just 12.6 mm.
Lange’s fusion of modern functionality and supreme finishing make it something of a hybrid in watch terms. It’s certainly not something you would call—heaven forfend—a daily beater, but for all its elegant good looks it remains a technical instrument capable of holding its own against any sports watch. If the serious price is beyond you, as it is for most of us, the 1815 Rattrappante is still to be admired, we think, as a functional, beautiful wonder.
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