Richard Lange
This collection is named after the inventor and scientist Richard Lange, the founder’s first-born son who, after taking over the reins in the A. Lange & Söhne manufacture along with his brother, registered up to 27 patents for his inventions. One of the most significant ones was the admixture of beryllium into the alloy used to produce the balance wheel’s hairspring. By the way, to this day they make their own in-house balance springs in Glashütte – by no means a common practice in the watchmaking world since only a select few manufactures have mastered the process.
Another contribution was his work on extremely accurate scientific observation watches. Due to the duty they performed, their appearance was solely geared towards superb legibility and absolute precision in observing the seconds, a precision that approaches the accuracy of regulatory clocks. A significant part of the collection also draws on the aesthetic of these large regulatory timekeeping instruments featuring separately arranged hour, minute and seconds displays. Another characteristic for the line, which includes models with tourbillons or fusée-and-chain mechanisms, is the use of Roman numerals and incredibly slender hands.
Another contribution was his work on extremely accurate scientific observation watches. Due to the duty they performed, their appearance was solely geared towards superb legibility and absolute precision in observing the seconds, a precision that approaches the accuracy of regulatory clocks. A significant part of the collection also draws on the aesthetic of these large regulatory timekeeping instruments featuring separately arranged hour, minute and seconds displays. Another characteristic for the line, which includes models with tourbillons or fusée-and-chain mechanisms, is the use of Roman numerals and incredibly slender hands.
Something more…
Pocket watches designed by Richard Lange were worn by men for whom their accuracy could literally be a matter of life and death.German geophysicist and polar explorer Erich Dagobert von Drygalski and aviation pioneer Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, the well-known early-20th century airship constructor, both took a fancy to his timepieces.
