A. Lange & Söhne Richard Lange “Pour le Mérite”
Richard Lange “Pour le Mérite” (platinum)
© A. Lange & Söhne
Richard Lange “Pour le Mérite” (red gold)
© A. Lange & Söhne
Calibre Lange L044.1
© Lange Uhren GmbH
The Richard Lange “Pour le Mérite” is a luxury watch by A. Lange & Söhne, part of the Pour le Mérite line.
The third Lange wristwatch with a fusée-and-chain transmission is named after Richard Lange, the company founder's oldest son and technical director of the family business. The extremely demanding complication has the purpose to optimize the precision. It overcomes the greatest disadvantage of the winding train – the unavoidable loss of torque – by intelligently harnessing the principle of levers.
The heart of the watch is the manual winding manufacture movement L044.1.
A further peculiarity is the bright shining, three-part white enamel dial, which is perfectly readable with its slender black Roman numerals for the hours and the small red Arabic numerals for 15, 30, 45 and 60 minutes.
This model was presented in the beginning of 2009 in limited edition (in platinum 50, in red gold 200 pieces).
Reference:
Movement:
- Three-quarter plate made of untreated Nickel silver
- Decorated and assembled by hand
- Precision-adjusted in five positions
- Balance as well as escape-wheel and fourth-wheel cocks engraved by hand
- Components 279 (not including the chain with its 636 parts)
- Shock-resistant glucydur screwed balance with poising screws
- Balance spring made in-house
- Precision beat adjustment mechanism with lateral setscrew and whiplash spring
- Power reserve 36 h
Case:
- ∅ 40.5 mm, H 10.7 mm
- Transparent caseback with sapphire crystal
Dial:
- Tree-part enamel dial
- Hands blued steel
Functions:
- Hours, minutes, small seconds
Bracelet:
- Hand-sewn crocodile leather strap with tang-type buckle in platinum or red gold
Limited edition:
- Red gold 200 pieces, platinum 50 pieces