A. Lange & Söhne Tourbograph "Pour le Mérite"
oscillation system, dial side
Wristwatch by A. Lange & Söhne, part of the Pour le Mérite line.
To mark the 15th anniversary of the reestablishment of A. Lange & Söhne, at the 7th December 2005, the traditional Glashütte manufacture with the Tourbograph "Pour le Mérite" presented a watch of superlatives to demonstrate their skills and their watchmaking brilliance in a kind of representative cross-section. For the first time in watchmaking history a watch unites the following refinements in the dimensions of a watch: drive via chain and fusee, tourbillon and fly-back chronograph. Rattrapante means: With the help of the fine, overlapping pair of hands from the dial center addition times can be stopped up to 30 minutes and also any number of split times exactly to the sixth of a second.
The production was so expensive that the first pieces were completed only at the end of 2006. Even after that just one piece per month could leave the production. Overall, the edition was limited to 101 pieces.
The heart of the watch is the manual winding manufacture movement L903.0. The fascinating motion of the tourbillon bogie can be either watched from the side of the dial or through the sapphire crystal caseback. Through the caseback the rattrapante chronograph mechanism and below the drive via chain and screw can also be admired.
First the watch case is only produced in platinum. (The Plans are to produce after 51 platinum models another 50 models in gold.)
As with the Tourbillon „Pour le Mérite“ also here the name affix alludes to the Prussian Order of Merit, inspired by Alexander von Humboldt and awarded by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV in 1842 for outstanding achievements in the field of science. And what this watch is concerned, the term is truly appropriate. The design of this watch is, by the way, based on plans of the co-founder of the new Lange era, Günter Blümlein, who in 2001 had been torn from his fruitful work by a deadly disease. Now it has been explicitly devoted by the builders to the major watch visionary.
A. Lange & Söhne won the Special Jury Prize at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève for the Tourbograph "Pour le Mérite" in November, 2006.
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