It was 30 years ago that the Glashütte-based luxury watchmaker presented the first four timepieces since it had been re-founded – each with a bespoke movement that had been specially developed in-house, the Lange 1, the Arkade, the Saxonia, and the high-end complication Tourbillon Pour le Mérite, which featured a rare fusée-and-chain mechanism. The next chapter in this unparalleled success story of the renaissance of traditional Saxon fine watchmaking was marked by the legendary Datograph, a chronograph introduced five years later that was also developed under the aegis of Günter Blümlein (1943 ? 2001), the seasoned industry expert that helped Walter Lange (1924 ? 2017) to re-establish Germany’s most prestigious watch brand in the aftermath of Germany’s reunification in 1990.
This statement piece gave new impetus to the world of precision watchmaking as one of the first chronograph movements developed from scratch in decades after the quartz crisis had halted the world of fine watchmaking. With its classic column-wheel mechanism, precisely jumping minute counter (it jumps to the next increment at the exact moment when the chrono seconds hand reaches the 60th second on the 60-second counter), flyback function and outsize date, with the latter being the first on a mechanical chronograph model, the Lange watchmakers set the bar high right from the start. It goes without saying that the technical complexity of the hand-wound movement was highligh...