Guten tag all,
With the launch of the new Limited Edition version of the original Richard Lange for the boutiques, i would just like to share a writing that i gave to a fellow watch passionists about 6 years ago when he had a dilemma making the choice between the RL and the Chronometre Souveraine from F.P.Journe.
Hope you enjoy it, as i did in writing it back then. I dont think i am even that eloquent these days, gosh did i have the "time" back then.
Here we go! ( Original script modified where appropriate)
Ok, well looks like you have narrowed down your
choice to 2 very special masterpieces. And while i'll try my best to help you
pull the trigger on either of them 1st, but if you like these kind of simple,
classic watches which trys to in my own words emulate " a modern marine
chronometer for the wrist" , I can guarantee you highly that you cannot live
without them both!
For your info, I still own both of the watches,
and in fact today my timepiece was the CS ^0^v
I will start 1st with the RL though. Well, 1st
of all we are dealing with a Lange here ok? And you know what? This is , in my
humble opinion and the opinion of many collectors and EVEN dealers themselves,
is THE ABSOLUTE BEST BRAND in the world of Haute Horlogerie today. Period. Best
in what way you may ask, well 1stly we want to point out the finish of their
products. It is SUPER DUPER BEAUTIFULLY finished, that when you 1st set your
eyes on it, you may even find a tear forming! The RL is not spared either from
this beauty treatment, and it is so awesome, that for me personally, Lange sets
the standard that I use to compare other watches to. (Much to the anger and
dislike of the other brand's staff and heads ,haha) I dont know what you use to
examine and appreciate your watches, but I use a 10 times loupe, which means
that in general I see things on a level that even the watchmaker who assembles
the watch doesnt, because their loupe is usually only about 4 times
magnification. But in any case, whether its the Glashutte stripes on the 3
quarter plate, or the anglage of the edges of the plate, the engraving on the
balance cock, they are all exquisite.
Next, we wanna talk about the reliability and
precision. Now, when i'm at the dealer that i buy my Lange's from here and they
use their watch rate measuring device ( dont know the name of it, but i think
you know what i'm talking about? Its the thing where they put the watch on and
it "listens" to the beat and plot out a graph that shows the rate changes over a
24 hour period and other details such as the alternations of the balance wheel)
the result for the RL is basically supernaturally good. In the dial up position,
it gains only less than 2 secs daily, and in the crown down position,( the
position where a watch is normally regulated to be the best in terms of rate
gains) it says a dead flat ZERO! But, the sad thing about this, is that the
device ONLY measures the readings at THIS instant in time, and extrapolates the
data. Meaning, that as the day wears on, and if you wear the watch and here
comes the movements of your wrist, the temperature and humidity change, and many
other factors such as shocks the watch may receive, AND not to forget that at
the same time the mainspring is winding its way down, meaning the torque sent to
the balance varies, you get a watch which actual performance may NOT be as the
device said it should be. While the RL does have a mainspring stopworks to try
and give nearly constant torque to the barrel / escapement, you need to be aware
that this is NOT a constant torque escapement like that found on the Lange 31,
or the remotoir d'eligate on the F.P. Journe tourbillon, both of whose job is to
store, and the send out the torque in equal amounts after a set amount of time.
Now, one thing I should let you know about me is that i'm personally VERY strict
towards the standards I set for my watch, sometimes a little TOO strict, so the
brands are very afraid of me! Haha. Its like i demand for the BEST time rates,
BUT yet even though I know that if i wanted dead on time I should just get a
quartz, but NO! I want these mechanical wonders to tell me the best/most
accurate time. But anyways, after say a 12 hour day of wearing the RL, for my
particular piece, i notice a gain of 1 secs or slightly less. My eyes are very
sensitive to these changes, so i'll say on a good day, its about 0.5 sec
gain.
I set my watches according to the atomic time
of Japan, of which my house clock, a digital desk clock synchronises itself
automatically every min to make sure that it tells the latest time, therefore
the RL is set to the dot as best as I can on the morning i'm going to wear it.
One major difference when it comes to time setting between the RL & CS is
that there is NO stop seconds function on the CS. I dont know about you, but I
find it such a pain in the ass when a watch is all about accuracy, yet you CANT
adjust it to the dot. While i have asked Mr. Journe before when I met him as to
the reason why he doesnt put a stop second function, he says that because he
trys to emulate real 18th century marine chronometers which back then didnt have
stop seconds, this i understand but for a perfectionist like me, what i dont
understand is then how do you expect me to adjust my watch to the "perfect"
standard time when I cant even stop it to the dot? In this aspect, the RL wins
it hands down.
As a daily wearer, especially if you are
working in an office environment, the RL is the perfect choice. Its simpleness
in dial design, clarity, and size fits a business suit, or even casual t shirt
& jeans as I often wear mine here. I'm a platinum guy, most of my
masterpieces are in PT 950, and so i love the stealth, the elegance, the hue
that you can see in it especially around the polished bezel of the RL , colour(
its this grayish white that you will fall on your knees for it) and
"luminousity" that you can subtly see whenever light falls on it. And a highly
important difference between PT & other white metals such as dear no
Stainless steel, white gold is the HEFT you can feel it when you hold the piece.
This is something that ONLY the owner or others whom he lets touch his watch can
truly know. In the sunlight its shiny, looks so pure. And you know one part i
really love about PT? Its that tone it gives off when you are at night in the
city, and the streetlights, car, building lights that fall on the bezel and the
way it light up..oh man its just heavenly is the only way I can describe it. I
wish i'v got photos to show you of the exact moment, but as you read from (website edited) im
not a wrist shot posting kind of guy, namely because I can buy these
masterpieces, yet never buy a digital camera of sorts at all! But even if i did
take a photo, I dont think the shot will truly reveal what i'm trying to tell
you here. You HAVE to see it to believe it! Bangkok is a big city like Tokyo, so
once you get the watch, go walking along the streets at night, you will
experience magic like I have here ! ^^
I am aware that many people in Singapore,
Thailand own the RL already, maybe not so much in PT, but i cant comment on that
because I havent returned home in a while already ( btw i'm indonesian chinese
with a bit of thai ancestry as well, born in Singapore, having home in
Singapore, Indonesia and Japan too). But for the Japanese market, VERY few
people have purchased the RL in PT, namely because of the price. The japanese
watch market is not as saturated as the South East Asian countries, and in here,
watches at these price level speak to only a few people. So most here are still
NOT willing to fork out so much for a watch, especially not one as simple as the
RL. So i can say that in the time since i'v purchased my RL last october, I have
yet to see another person wearing it, whether in PT or the other 2 gold
versions. Even while attending a lange customer's program that we had here the
other day, I am the only person who owns the RL. So in Tokyo, i'll say its VERY
rare.
Now we move on to the CS. As you must have read
too in one of my earlier post about the accuracy of the CS, regrettably my CS
doesnt perform that way anymore. You see, my CS faced some problems about 2
weeks ago, and i had to send it to get repaired at the boutique here( we have 1
of the 4 F.P.Journe boutique in the world) . While i did specifically instruct
them NOT to fiddle with my balance wheel, and i believe they did not, but
somehow after getting it back from repairs the performance is now "quite bad",
according to my standards, that is. For the objective watch brand point of view,
its still good, gaining only about a few seconds a day, but its rather difficult
to track it precisely, namely because you cannot set it to the dot once the
watch is running. You can only do this at the start when the watch is totally
drained. What i do is that i know that to get my CS running, the balance wheel
will start oscillating on the 3rd turn of the crown, so after confirming the sec
that the sec hand is resting on, i wait till the time standard reaches that sec,
and about 2 sec before the real time is reached, i wind the crown twice, and on
the dot, i wind it the 3rd time, bringing the sec hand of the CS running exactly
to the seconds of the real time. This used to work before my repair, but now,
after doing his, it works for the moment, but when i'm moving the hour &
minute hands forward, the observation i get is that the seconds hand advances
right there and then. So it ends up running 5 seconds faster than real time
rightaway, and since i cant hack into the seconds, i am forced to live with the
watch telling me the wrong time. This is highly unbearable for me, but again
this differs for individuals.
Using the same device at my Lange dealer, the
CS ratings is +7secs at dial up, and +3secs at crown down. When I 1st received
the watch new at the boutique, the main complain i had was the finish of the
case. The CS is in a polished platinum case. Now, comparing this to the RL, when
the RL was new the mirror polish of the bezel was like super mirror i tell you.
But with the CS, when I examined it under my loupe, there was MANY SCRATCHES
ALREADY! On the bezel, the underside of the bezel, and the top of the crown,
which in the CS is just flat with no brand name nor logo, was the worst, it
looks like it went through a war. Even though it was new! I told this to the
boutique, but the general sales director here said "I dont care about Lange,
because this is our brand, and we are different." (he said this because i told
him that my RL came in super shiny condition when new,under loupe) I wasnt too
happy about the way he told me this, and yes while i agree that F.P.Journe is
NOT Lange, but in my mind i'm asking like " So you are saying that Lange is a
much better brand, and in fact you people DO NOT want to improve so you can even
compete with such a prestigious brand? " They took the watch back, and polished
it. After i got the watch back, while it has improved over when i 1st saw it,
but in my standards, i have to say sorry, its not a Lange, and they could have
done better. I admit that im very stubborn when it comes to these kind of
things, but since a brand DOES exist that meets virtually all my criteria with
nothing that i can complain about, is EXACTLY the point WHY A. Lange & Sohne
WAS, IS AND WILL STILL BE my MOST FAVOURITE AND BELOVED BRAND. And the RL happen
to be my most favourite watch of all time, therefore what can i say?
The CS is incredibly slim, that is one of the
major selling points of this timepiece i believe. But because of its slimness,
meaning that the volume of PT in it isnt that much at all, its not heavy enough
for me personally. You see, one thing in liking PT watches is i love them to be
heavy, and i mean UNBELIEVABLY HEAVY! Its the heavier the better for me. So
while you balance the CS on your finger tips, and yes you can tell its PT, but
just not the usual that i "expect". Again as a business watch, and even casual
watch, its superb. My CS is the Black label boutique edition, and because of its
black dial, and I did a black glossy crocodile leather strap with platinum
stitching order for this piece, plus the fact that virtually all my clothes are
black/ very dark coloured it suits me super as a casual street walker. I call
this my own version of the "All- Black" watch trend that the market is seeing
now. Since most all black watches out there e.g. Hublot big bang, Panerai 292
black seal ceramic, Zenith defy Open extreme stealth( a very sexy piece but...)
are 1. NOT Platinum cased, 2. Automatic ( FYI I ONLY buy manual hand wound
watches) therefore unfortunately none I will buy. So i Made my own! Even
Monsieur Journe was very impressed with my design when I met him last month here
again. ( He comes to Tokyo quite often , either to do talks or to visit his shop
and see how things are going, very nice guy)
As for rarity, since my BLB edition is but the
8th piece in the world, and also the 2nd piece in the whole of Japan, with the
other guy who owns it NOT living in the Tokyo region but somewhere far west, I
can safely say that unless its a fake, you will not see even one more soul
within 300 kilometres wearing this CS. I assume the CS you are looking at is the
normal white dialed version? Even for that, in Tokyo I have only met 1 other
person who wears it. In a city of 12 million people. I'll say thats pretty rare
In my humble opinion, if both were regulated to
perfection, I would still bet on the RL to perform better in accuracy and
stability. But there is one thing you should know about the difference between
accuracy and stability of rate. Accuracy is something we owners, and me in
particular , says when the watch tells the time of the time standard equally.
Once say tomorrow comes, and the watch is one second faster, i would say its not
"accurate". But on the other hand, if it does continue to gain 1 sec ONLY daily,
then it is considered to be VERY stable. But this also can only be compared if
the watch is in a constant condition all the time ( say its not worn, put dial
up, with you winding the watch daily at the exact same time, same temperature
etc. ) But since this is not possible in my daily life and home, I cannot for a
fact say objectively about both watches. But the thing is , since there is stop
seconds for the RL, after say a week of not wearing and it runs 20 seconds
faster, you can stop the second and re-adjust the time. But for the CS, since
there is no way to hack into the seconds, it just keeps on gaining and gaining,
and unless you let it run down and start it up again ON TIME, which is difficult
to mantain anyways as i have experienced, you just keep on getting the wrong
time, which gets worst and worst everyday as the watch keeps on advancing. In
fact, because my CS has become such a watch, I use it mainly like a 2 hand watch
( like my Panerai 249 california dial) and I try my best to turn a blind eye to
the seconds subdial, because I know that i cant stand seeing the seconds ticking
on the wrong time, with me being left helpless in that I cannot accurately
adjust.
To answer your last question ( well i'm sure
you can guess it 99% by now, haha ) my keeper is DEFINITELY THE RICHARD LANGE
PLATINUM. Because it holds the values that is true to me, and as all my watches
are bought now but are one day to be passed down to my children when they are
old enough, the RL embodies in near perfection the principles of life that I
would want to pass on. Moreover, it is Roman numerals as opposed to Arabic on
the CS. And as i always push forth, that if you want eternity, go Roman. The RL
also boasts a blued seconds hand, and yes while the white-dialed CS have 3 blued
hands, but for my BLB edition, the hands are rhodiumed white. The heft is
perfect. Solid, strong, Quality. The case is Classy, elegant, and gives me huge
confidence when I put it on. And even though their size differs only a minute
bit ( RL: 40.5mm ,CS: 40mm) , the thicker case of the RL, and its dial layout
makes it appear much bigger. Almost like a 43mm look. Sometimes it looks even
bigger than say 44mm Panerai. To my eyes at least.
As we always say here,Ultimately, The decision
is yours to make. I just hope that I have been of some help to you. Thank you
for reading my message till this far ( sorry if i wrote a little too much), but
I never get tired of helping a fellow watch enthusiast. Please, feel free to ask
me more if you need clarification about any point that I have made.
And here's a wristshot or two of the two masterpieces in question, 1st up the CS
And then of course, the STAR of the talk
I sure hope that this little analysis have stirred up more of your interest in this often underlooked, but superlative in all ways masterpiece from the house of A. Lange & Sohne, and that with this new edition, albeit of something old, that you will discover for yourself the beauty of a modern " Marine Chronometer for the Wrist"
Tschuss and thanks for reading thus far!
Stephen
