A. Lange & Söhne Tourbillon Pour le Mérite

The Lange & Söhne brand as we know it now was created in December 1990 when it was registered by Walter Lange.

But the true kick off was the public presentation by Gunter Blumlein, Harmut Knothe and Walter Lange of the first 4 watches the 24th of October, 1994: the Lange 1, the Arkade, the Saxonia and... the Tourbillon Pour le Mérite.




The Tourbillon Pour le Mérite is maybe the watch which best symbolizes the come-back of the Saxonian manufacture in the high-end segment of the industry.

Gunter Blumlein perfectly knew that it was not possible to move from a segment to a higher one. So, if you wish to successfully launch a high-end brand, you need to give the proof of your excellence from the very first watches you produce.

That was the purpose of this Tourbillon Pour le Mérite: to demonstrate all the skills and talents of the Manufacture.




The Tourbillon Pour le Mérite is not a "mere" Tourbillon watch: it combines  2 very specific systems whose aim is to improve accuracy.

Blumlein wanted to introduce a Tourbillon watch which brought something new, unseen in the watch industry: the Tourbillon Pour le Mérite was the first ever wristwatch wich gathers a Tourbillon with a Chaîne-Fusée transmission. This will is still the same at Lange. When a new complication is added into the collection, it has to bring something new, original (i.e the Moonphases with the 1815 Emil Lange, the Datograph, the Tourbillon which can be stopped with the Cabaret Tourbillon). If one day, Lange releases a striking watch, be sure that this watch would play its notes like no other one.

The Tourbillon Pour le Mérite is the project of 2 persons, 2 personalities of the industry:

The late Gunter Blumlein who designed the idea of the watch
and Giulio Papi who worked more precisely on the Chaîne-Fusée Transmission system.

Their work, their reflexions went so far that  the key ideas of the Tourbograph Pour le Mérite, which was released on December 2005 to celebrate the 15th birthday of the brand, were already defined.

We all know the purpose of the Tourbillon: it reduces the effects of gravity on the regulating organ by placing the escapement in a revolving cage.

The purpose of the Chaîne-Fusée system is to regulate the power transmitted to the gears,  to best use the energy from the mainspring. The planetary gearing  system keeps this stability even when you are winding the watch.

When the watch is fully wound, the chain is wrapped around the Fusée. When the power reserve is low, it is wrapped around the barrel.

Credits: Lange & Söhne

The chain of the Richard Lange PLM:



When a Lange watch has a Chaîne-Fusée Transmission system, it takes the desgination "Pour le Mérite". It is not related to the presence of a Tourbillon (the Richard Lange PLM doesn't have a Tourbillon and the Cabaret Tourbillon is not a PLM watch). Only 3 Lange watches have the right to wear this desgination: The Tourbillon PLM, the Richard Lange PLM and the Tourbograph PLM.

The Tourbograph:



The Tourbillon Pour le Mérite has a 38,5mm diameter and a height of 10mm. 201 watches were produced between 1994 and 1998: 50 with a Platinum case, 150 with a gold case (100 in YG, 25 in PG and 25 in WG) and 1 in Stainless Steel (request from a customer).

The dial is made of solid silver and it is perfectly balanced.




The right sub-dial is the power reserve indicator (36 hours). The left sub-dial is the second hand. You will notice the discreet "Tourbillon" writing inside this sub-dial.

The slender Tourbillon bridge is made of steel. The big opening in the dial allows us to observe the Tourbillon cage and one of the two diamond endstones. The Tourbillon cage does a full revolution in one minute.

Caliberb L902.0 has a 30mm diameter and a height of 6mm. It has a 2,5hz frequency, 29 jewels and 2 diamond endstones. The second diamond is located in the gold chaton of the balance cock. You are able to see the barrel and the chain at the top of the caliber.  One of the most impressive thing in a Chaîne-Fusée transmission system from Lange is the size of the chain. The chain is 156mm long with the hook but each and every link is very small, in fact much smaller than other Chaîne-Fusée systems I saw inside other watches.







You will appreciate the impressive finishings and the very specific architecture of the L902.0. Of course, when you compare the L902.0 with the L044.1, you will find a lot of common points. Obviously the main differences are concentrated in the regulating organ: one has a Tourbillon, the other doesn't have one. Remember that the first two figures indicate the year when the development of the caliberhas started. 1990 for the Tourbillon PLM and 2004 for the Richard Lange PLM.










Winding this watch gives an unique feeling. It is very smooth but you "feel" the presence of the chain. It is pure pleasure.

On the wrist, we appreciate the balanced dial and the perfect proportions. The watch is very elegant and even if I'm not a great fan of holes in dials, the design works very well. It is  a sort of "enlarged" 1815 up-and-down even if here, the subdials are positioned right in the middle of the dial. The pictoried watch is the WG version which can be easily recongnized with its blue dial.










The Tourbograph PLM and the Richard Lange PLM are the proud descendant of the Tourbillon PLM but we can find now other Tourbillon with Chaîne-Fusée Transmission in the industry. Funny thing is that 2 watches come from my mind and they have a very opposite style.

First one is the Breguet Tradition Tourbillon. This Breguet has an interesting design but I found it too thick. Moreover, the links of the chain are larger than the Lange ones and visually, the way the chain works is less smooth, continuous.





Second one is the Cabestan. You can't find a more different watch from the Lange or the Breguet. The caliber was finished by Eric Coudray, the creator of the Gyrotourbillon at JLC. Here we have a vertical Tourbillon with the Fusée movement set on ball-bearing. The chain has more or less the same length (23cm).



Gunter Blumlein succeeded in his will to create a sort of ultimate watch with this Tourbillon Pour le Mérite. 15 years later, this Tourbillon Pour le Mérite is still considered as one of the most impressive Tourbillon watches (proof is given in the different auctions results). Walter Lange is still wearing his Tourbillon Pour le Mérite (the n°1 of course) as his daily watch. The true symbol of the rebirth of the Manufacture.




 
Fr.Xavier


This message has been edited by foversta on 2009-09-21 13:23:36