Anthony de Haas on the Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar (Video)

Those who have met Anthony de Haas, in real life that is, will never forget this brilliant and energetic Director of Product Development of A. Lange & Söhne. Anthony, or Tony for friends, knows watches inside out and has been in the lead for all new Lange watches that were introduced since 2004. During the recent digital Watches & Wonders we talked about the brand new Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar, how it was constructed, and about the Lange 31, the Grande Complication and the Triple Split; all that in a ‘dreary’ zoom-setting.

While we, here at MONOCHROME, discussed the Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar, we see the addition of this complication as a pretty logical next step for the Lange 1 collection. And we also assumed it would be a fairly straightforward operation, to take the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar, remove the tourbillon and replace it with a non-rotating regulating organ, et voila. But apparently, things are more complicated and we were actually not really surprised that Lange didn’t take a short cut, but went the extra mile to improve what can be improved on a watch that was already introduced nine years ago. Tony explains what has been changed and why it wasn’t a simple “remove tourbillon, plug in normal regulator” action. It’s certainly not the bargain of the week, but the new Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar is so incredibly beautiful… well done!

The conversation didn’t end there. We also discussed the Lange 31, the Triple Split and the Grand Complication! So many highlights from this superb German watch brand, and all coming from the man in charge of developing these new watches. It is always such a pleasure talking with Tony and I hope you’ll enjoy our conversation as much as I did. Despite the ‘dreary’ zoom-setting… Fingers crossed that we can visit them in Glashütte soon again!