A. Lange & Sohne 1815 Tourbillon (730.025) A. Lange & Sohne Watch Review

Hi, this is Tim of the 1916 Company. Welcome and thanks for logging on. If you love this watch, email me. Tim also at the1916company.com for purchase pricing and availability questions concerning this watch. Today, we discuss a platinum 2014 model year limited edition of 100 pieces from Alanca & Söhne of Glashütte, Germany. This is the 1815 Tourbillon. It's everything the name implies. It has the Arabic numerals that denote Alanca 1815 series watch and a Tourbillon, which includes both stop seconds and zero reset. So, it's 39.5 millimeters in diameter, 11.5 millimeters thick, and only 47.2 from lug tip to lug tip with a 20 millimeter spacing in between the lugs. The strap is not broken in. You can see it's quite stiff. So, I'm going to pinch my wrist a little bit here by pulling it tight. Take a look at where the lugs are. This watch would wear just fine on a wrist as small as 15 centimeters circumference. My wrist is 16 centimeters in circumference. Here's your down the barrel angle. I even think 14 centimeters circumference would be possible if your wrist is more flat than round and it is low enough with the domed bezel to slide underneath the dress cuff. Taking a look at the strap, I mentioned it's stiff, but that's because it's high quality. A very high grade and thick cut of large rectangular symmetrical scale alligator leather. An expensive cut of the generally what you see on the best watches. We have a sort of matte black with a little bit of bolstering to give it thickness, a folded edge, a monotone stitch, calfskin on the bottom, brand new Lange factory strap. The buckle, which is Lange branded, but made by Bussolador, features two elements that I like. You have an elevated bridge. So, the strap sits inside the buckle rather than stacking up underneath. Let's see how those two things are flushed together. Then you have this little bar. So, if you use the smallest hole or you punch an even smaller one, the strap won't get pinned on the pin. That retaining bar makes it easier to remove the watch if you have a small wrist. You can see here we have a set and finished mid case and then everything else is polished. That's not always how it's done at Lange. Sometimes they have full polish cases. So, I definitely appreciate this contrast. We have the distinctive stepped lugs that company founder, or I should say, re-founder Gunter Blumlein decided was necessary to give the watch a unique aesthetic. So, along with Walter Lange in the early nineties, he decided to go with the stepped lugs. They are here. We have a soft bevel that diminishes as we move towards the tip of the lug. Notice that we have a gadroon setup where we have sort of a fluting or a step to the case back and then a symmetrical fluting or step to the bezel. That is very distinctive and not something you see on other Lange watches. So, it sets this watch apart. We have Lange's name on the crown and the crown does look like it's made of white gold, doesn't it? Interesting observation there. The dial, however, is made of sterling silver. It's a disc of sterling silver that's then silvered and printed to create the Chemin de Fer railroad track outboard for the minutes, the vaulted name, the city of origin, and then the Arabic numerals. So, if you have Roman numerals or stick indices, you've got a Saxonia. If you have Roman numerals, you've got a Ricard Lange and if you've got Arabic numerals, you've got an 1815. The hands at center are alpha style fired steel polished at their center. The cannon pinion is also polished. We have a bridge with polished edges and then you can see that it features facets that are actually matte finish with little lips down the center and out on the edge that are mirror finished for contrast. So, you have that media blast and then you have the little hairline of polish. So, you've got a one-minute tourbillon here that can act as your second hand. Notice that there's a clear sapphire on the end of the hammer that acts on a heart cam and I guess we'll let this watch traverse a bit past 60 seconds, but notice that when I pull the crown, it doesn't just stop the movement. It zero resets it. Lange first introduced hacking tourbillon to its watches in 2008. A lot of people think all Lange tourbillon hack. That's not true. They didn't until 2008, but this watch right here combines zero reset with hacking. So, you can always set the watch precisely to the second against a reference time. You can also see the heritage tourbillon design and if you go back generations in East German watchmaking, you will see that many tourbillon regulators that were made in Glashutte and Dresden also used this cage design, which includes a combination of interior angles, satin, and polished elements. Very difficult to execute on such small surfaces. It's a three hertz beat rate and you can see it uses an overcoil hairspring. So, in every physical position, it will keep very consistent time. The watch features five position adjustment, which is the high horology and chronometer standard. It pivots on 20 synthetic rubies, but what's this right here? One diamond. You can see the underside capstone of the tourbillon is a genuine brilliant cut diamond. Now, there's more going on here. All this is 30 meters water resistant. We have a individual numbering engraved on the back. It's caliber L102 and it's a 72 hour power reserve. You can see that it features German silver bridges and plates. So, this champagne colored metal is a nickel copper zinc alloy called German silver. It's not silver, it's mostly copper. As you can see, that gives it its golden hue, nickel and copper and zinc. All these elements together make it highly resistant to tarnishing or oxidizing, though it will get darker with age. You can also see that we have not just the material used on heritage German watches, but golden chaton cups fixed in place by blued screws. So, historically, it wasn't always possible to directly press precision set a jewel into a bridge or a plate. So, a precision golden cup would be made, the jewel would be set into that, and then the cup with the jewel will be held by screws. Notice we have both polished and blued screws, fire blued screws here. So, we have the chaton, we have German silver, we have a three-quarter style plate like you would have found on a vintage German pocket watch, though there aren't a whole lot of edges to these bridges. They are mirrored with proper anglage and we have a heritage element, the engraved balance cock, which is engraved freehand with a burin and not with a lathe or a drill or an engine. You can also see engine turning on the base plate to a high grade and that some of the underlying parts of the stop seconds mechanism are also well decorated. A truly special watch. Everything about this watch exhausts superlatives. Genuinely impressive stuff. And I can even show you how Lange movement codes work. So, L1021. So, here's how this works. L is for Lange, and then those numbers, 10, that would have been the year they started working on this movement. So, 2010. Two means it would have been the second movement they started on that year, and then one means it's the first revision to this movement since it was released. So, now you know the lingo. A lot to love on this watch. Reach out to Tim also at the1916company.com for purchase and pricing details.