1815 Annual Calendar

Video

Practical companion for the whole year

With a manually wound movement, analogue date, day and month indications as well as a moon-phase display, the 1815 Annual Calendar presents itself as the classic interpretation of a complication that is both attractive and useful.

The 1815 Annual Calendar is the second A. Lange & Söhne timepiece endowed with the eponymous calendar function. But in contrast to the self-winding Saxonia Annual Calendar with an outsize date presented in 2010, the new model features a manually wound movement and an analogue date, following the classic design and style principles of the 1815 watch family. The manual winder is also a subtle homage to Ferdinand Adolph Lange. In 1866, he obtained a patent in the USA for his development of a crown winder that would replace the hitherto commonplace key-operated winding works, referring to it as “a useful mechanism for winding and setting watches”.

Hovering over the argenté-coloured background of the classic dial, blued-steel hands indicate the time, complemented by the contrast-rich black Arabic numerals and the peripheral railway-track minute scale. Calculated to remain accurate for 122.6 years, the moon-phase display is integrated into the subsidiary seconds dial at 6 o’clock. The calendar indications are easily legible thanks to the golden hands of the two subdials that are precisely aligned with the horizontal centre axis. On the left, they display the day and on the right the month. From March to January, all month durations are correctly indicated. Although it is shorter, the mechanism treats February as a 30-day month, so on 1 March, a manual correction must be performed. A button at 2 o’clock makes it possible to collectively advance all indications, for instance if the watch has stood still for a longer period of time. Additionally, three recessed push pieces allow separate corrections of the day, month and moon phase. For the first time in a Lange calendar model, the date can also be separately advanced with an additional recessed push piece.

Because the calendar module is only 1.4 millimetres high, the complete movement is very slender. Despite its compactness, the new manually wound calibre L051.3 has a maximum power reserve of 72 hours. One detail is instantly noticeable at a glance through the sapphire-crystal caseback: as a pointer to manual winding, the ratchet and crown wheels are visibly integrated into the German-silver three-quarter plate and decorated with solarisation. Screwed gold chatons, the screw balance, the whiplash spring and the hand-engraved balance cock harmoniously round out a movement finished to the ambitious standards of traditional Saxon watchmaking artistry.