A. Lange & Söhne’s extended celebration of its flagship timepiece’s 25th anniversary — ten limited-edition versions of the Lange 1, rolled out over ten months, beginning in January at SIHH 2019 and concluding in October, when the model reaches its actual birthday — continues with this month’s announcement of the eighth model in the series, the Lange 1 Daymatic “25th Anniversary.”
Introduced in 2010, the Daymatic, as its name implies, is the first model in the Lange 1 timepiece family equipped with an automatic movement. Its dial arrangement is designed as something of a mirror image of the original Lange 1’s asymmetrical design: hours and minutes shifted to the right, small seconds subdial and the large, double-window “outsize” date moved to the left. More substantially, the Daymatic dial includes a retrograde day-of-the-week indication in place of the original Lange 1’s power reserve indicator, the thinking being that the latter function is not as relevant for a self-winding watch.
Appropriately for this “silver” anniversary, the watch features an argenté-colored dial made from solid silver, whose highlights include recessed areas, printed deep blue numerals and hour markers, blued steel hands, and blue numerals for the outsize date. The case is slightly larger than that of its manual-winding predecessor, 39.5 mm in diameter, 10.4 mm thick, and, like all the cases of the 25th anniversary models, made of 18k white gold.
Inside the case is Lange’s manufacture Caliber L021.1, which has powered the Daymatic since its 2010 debut and which was developed specially for that timepiece. It features a gold central winding rotor with an embossed A. Lange & Sohne logo and a peripheral centrifugal mass in platinum for increased winding efficiency. Fully wound, the in-house-made mainspring amasses a power reserve of 50 hours, and the indexless balance oscillates at 21,600 vph. Like the previous 25th Anniversary editions, this one’s movement features special decorative flourishes in addition to the ones traditionally found in Lange calibers (such as Glashute ribbing on the mainplate, thermally blued screws, and screwed gold chatons), most notably the number “25,” rendered in the style of the outsize date display, incorporated into the hand-engraved floral motif of the balance cock.
The Lange 1 Daymatic “25th Anniversary” — like its siblings, strictly limited to 25 pieces — is mounted on a hand-stitched, dark blue alligator leather strap with gray stitching and a pronged buckle made of white gold. Its price is set at 44,200 euros.
