Dr. Ito's Thorough Analysis of Mechanical Watches! Vol.8 - About A. Lange & Söhne's "Caliber" Numbers

Good evening everyone!

This is the eighth installment of a column that talks about mechanical watches from an engineer's perspective.

About A. Lange & Söhne's Caliber numbers

I will talk about this topic.

Since its revival in 1994, the new A. Lange & Söhne has quickly gained a reputation as one of the leading luxury watch brands. It now has an overwhelming presence in the industry, and is counted among the world's top five watch brands.

I believe that the reason behind this rapid recovery in just 20 to 30 years is that the unique models that were born from a production-first attitude, such as developing new movements for new models, have captured the hearts of watch enthusiasts who pay attention to machinery and mechanisms.

This time, I would like to focus on the movements of A. Lange & Söhne and explain the "Caliber" number that is attached to each one. Some of you may think that "Cal." is just a number, but in fact, this number starting with "L" contains various information.

And if you know how to interpret them, you can gain a different perspective on the work and go back in time to think about the history of watch development, which is quite interesting, so I hope you will take this opportunity to learn about it.

If you haven't paid much attention to watches, this article will make you curious and you might find yourself completely immersed in the "watch swamp" before you know it... (laughs)

Let's take a look right away!!

"Cal. (Caliber)" Number Explanation

First, I would like to explain using my favorite model, the Lange 1. The Caliber number of the first generation Lange 1 is L901.0.

This is

・L (=A. Lange & Söhne)
・90 (= Development began in 1990)
・ 1 (= the order in which development began in the same year)
・.0 (= branch number, meaning the number of minor changes made, unit 0)

Next, the "Cal." number of the second generation "Lange 1" is "L121.1".
This is

・L (=A. Lange & Söhne)
・12 (= development started in 2012)
・ 1 (= the order in which they started in the same year)
・.1 (meaning the first movement)

This shows that it took about three years from development to its release in 2015. As we cross the millennium, it can be a little difficult to understand, but the "Cal." number gives us information such as when the movement was developed and how much it has been modified.

Next, we will introduce the Datograph, which is said to be "the most beautiful chronograph in the world."

The movement installed in the original "Ref.403.035" is "Cal.L951.1". And the movement installed in the latest model "Ref.405.028" announced at this year's Watches & Wonders Geneva is "Cal.L951.6".

As can be seen from the fact that the first three digits of these two movements are the same, "951," they are based on the "first movement whose development began in 1995."

While keeping the basic design unchanged, the Datograph has undergone many refinements, extending the power reserve from the first model's short 36 hours to 60 hours and adding a power reserve indicator, among other major advances. However, you can see that the basic design is still based on the historic movement whose development began in 1995.

If we read the book while being aware of these rules, we can see that, although we would normally assume that the newest model is the newest, this is not necessarily the case. For example, the new 2016 Richard Lange Jumping Seconds model uses the Cal. L094.1 movement, which means that development began in 2009. In other words, although development began three years earlier than the new 2015 Lange 1 model, it took seven years to complete.

summary

What did you think?

Even if development began around the same time, there are cases where a watch that was completed earlier was released first, or where the release was delayed for some reason, so this may lead to different perspectives, questions, and new discoveries than if you simply looked at the watches in order of their release year.

We hope that this article has been useful to you and has piqued your interest in luxury watches! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask us directly, and we look forward to hearing from you!

Look forward to the next one! See you next time!