Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. The Lang & Heyne Friedrich III, Now with a Power Reserve Indication (Incl. Video)
The Dresden manufacture adds a power-reserve indication to the manually wound Friedrich III, incorporating a newly developed differential mechanism.
Lang & Heyne has practised the Saxon approach to independent watchmaking since 2001, working near Dresden and offering watches that combine classical German design with highly elaborate hand-finishing. The manufacture names its collections after figures from the House of Wettin, the Saxon dynasty with an 800-year history in the region. The Friedrich III, originally introduced more than a decade ago, is an elegant time-only watch that has been offered in different case and dial configurations, including the rose-gold and frosted silver version or the Manufaktur Edition of 2025 that came in a steel case, with a black champlevé enamel dial and a hunter-style caseback. Now, the collection gains a new complication with the Friedrich III Power Reserve (or Gangreserve, if you want to do it in German), adding more than just a new display to the manufacture’s hand-wound watch.
The new Friedrich III Power Reserve keeps the model’s case dimensions: 39.2mm in diameter and 10.5mm in thickness. The proportions are dress-watch territory; the fully polished case is compact and sits comfortably on the wrist. It is available only in 18ct rose gold or 950 platinum, with the unmistakable Lang & Heyne triple-lug construction. That third lug is recessed and shorter than the outer pair, making its presence less pronounced. It remains one of Lang & Heyne’s identifiers, but customisation allows clients to request a more conventional two-lug configuration.
At 3 o’clock, the onion-style crown sits between subtle crown guards. Sapphire crystal is used on both sides of the watch, with anti-reflective treatment applied to both surfaces, and the case is water-resistant to 30m.
The dial adds a new indication to the restrained Friedrich III layout. It is a three-piece, flat-polished ceramic, with a decorative medallion in the centre finished with a fine givré texture and toned to match the case metal. Elongated Roman numerals are engraved into the ceramic and filled with black lacquer, with the minutes and power reserve indicator markings in either red or blue depending on the execution. Broad spade-shaped hands, blued or gold, indicate the hours and minutes, while the collection’s large running seconds display remains at 6 o’clock, with a hand matching the central handset.
The power reserve occupies the upper portion of the dial at 12 o’clock. Its graduated scale is divided into ten segments and uses the German terms “Ab” and “Auf” to indicate empty and full; the beginning of the scale is represented by a sequence of diminishing dots, to recall the type of indication traditionally found on marine chronometers. The power reserve hand is always in heat-blued steel.
The watch is powered by the new LH Caliber VI-II, based on the manufacture’s established Caliber VI. It is manually wound, measures 33.5mm in diameter and 4.9mm thick, beats at 18,000 vibrations/and provides 55 hours of power reserve. While the base is familiar, the evolution is big news.
Usually, adding a power reserve function is quite straightforward. But we are dealing with the Saxons here, so the system that usually tracks the mainspring barrel and its wind state was upgraded by adding a differential mechanism. Why? If you track only the barrel and its wind state, you see how much energy remains. If you track only the motion of the ratchet wheel, you can see how much energy you have wound into the movement. The system now combines these two movements, bringing them onto a single axis.
That differential is mounted under its own bridge, next to the mainspring. Two crown-toothed wheels carry the respective movements to a satellite gear mounted on a separate rotating axis, which becomes the display shaft. An additional gear drives the power-reserve hand to remind the wearer to wind the watch before the movement reaches a lower-energy state, where the mainspring’s force becomes less consistent. The barrel has no stop-work mechanism, so the movement runs down naturally, with the dial scale reflecting that behaviour.
Through the sapphire back, traditional finishing of the calibre is in view, including a hand-engraved balance cock, polished bevels and several sharp internal angles, all done by hand. The movement contains 174 parts, 27 rubies and one brilliant-cut diamond end stone over the balance staff, a signature touch in Lang & Heyne’s movements.
The Friedrich III Power Reserve is worn on an alligator leather strap closed with a pin buckle, matched to the case material. The new watch is limited to 25 pieces and is available exclusively in 18ct rose gold or platinum 950. Orders can already be placed, with first deliveries arriving in the fourth quarter, depending on demand.
The rose-gold version is priced at EUR 58,900, while the platinum edition is EUR 63,500, both excluding taxes. For more, please visit lang-und-heyne.de.
