A. Lange & Söhne

skyeriding
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To play Devils Advocate...

First, I think that the "3/4 gold rotor" and it's relief engraving is a work of art. That's the best part over the full automatic rotors on entry level modern Lange watches like the Saxonia automatic or moonphase.

However, something feels missing. Perhaps I'm biased, but the movement itself doesn't feel very "Lange"-like. It appears as if it's a more utilitarian movement than a crafted ornament or jewelry that you feel from most Lange watches.

Take for instance, the rotor plate in the photo here. It is much more plain and feels more machine-made than the more organic feeling top plates from eg 3/4 plates, or the Lange 1 plates. The plates for these sax-o-mats are very geometrically simple and have large haphazard gaps in them, which feels more utilitarian and industrial. This is further accentuated by the visible winding gears cutout under the rotor, with some of them peeking through the tiny edges. The tiny triangular plate on the left side which encompass the bridge surrounding the rotor and drops under the rotor is clearly a very geometrically angular CNC made part. Also, we have no screwed gold chatons on this movement understandably as the rotor takes up all the space, but I believe is an iconic charm of Lange watches (despite being purely aesthetic and nonfunctional chatons). In this movement, we only have direct pressed in chatons mixed with pure friction fit rubies into the rotor plate.

EDIT: ALL that being said, I'll honestly take this anyday over newer say, a Saxonia automatic with the full "gold plated" rotor..

Regards,
skyeriding This message has been edited by skyeriding on 2016-05-02 03:26:18