A. Lange & Söhne inaugurates Watches & Wonders 2023 with the Odysseus Chronograph, the Saxon brand’s first automatic chronograph.
One launch. Imagine the power and importance this watch must have to allow a brand to launch a single timepiece at the most important fair of the year. Given the complication and the case it mounts, we are sure collectors will be talking about it for a long time.
The debut of A. Lange & Söhne’s first sports watch in 2019
Since the rebirth of the brand in 1994, A. Lange & Söhne has distinguished itself by creating extremely classic watches with a quality of finish almost unmatched in the world of watchmaking. When we talk about classic watches, we are mainly talking about cases made of precious materials and leather straps, with some exceptions for metal bracelets finely matched to the case.
In 2019 the brand has set sail on a new adventure in the world of sports watches, but don’t think of just any watch, because we are talking about the Odysseus. For A. Lange & Söhne creating a completely new collection could only be the result of many years of work and combining their own style in a sporty, yet different way from all the others.
Steel is an almost nonexistent material in their watches, in fact we find it only in the very rare Lange 1 (20 pieces), in a Homage to Walter Lange, and in a Double Split, for a total of only 22 pieces in this metal before 2019. That year indeed marks the entry of the first steel watch, mass-produced and sporty in style: here is the Odysseus. A time-only watch, with an oversized day and date at 3 and 9 o’clock (in pure Lange style), with a 40.5 mm case and an interesting integrated bracelet.
In later years it was reissued in a few different editions, such as the 2021 edition with a white gold case and leather or rubber strap, or the 2022 edition with a titanium case and bracelet, a rare material for the brand.
The Odysseus Chronograph at Watches & Wonders 2023
Four years after the advent of the collection, the Odysseus Chronograph, the brand’s first automatic chronograph and the first Odysseus to feature this complication, arrives at Watches & Wonders 2023.
In the world of watchmaking, the chronograph is held in high esteem for its complexity and architectural beauty. Those of A. Lange & Söhne, all the more so, are among the most incredible, to the point that we could bless the inventor of the sapphire case backs that made it possible to appreciate these beautifully finished calibres.
The brand chose to design a self-winding chronograph, respecting the idea of a sports watch that this collection represents. The hand-wound calibres have rightly remained in the other more classic collections, such as the Saxonia or the 1815.
To house this new L156.1 DATOMATIC caliber, A. Lange & Söhne chose a steel case measuring 42.5 mm, thus 2 millimeters larger than the time-only. The watch has a screw-down crown with a special operation (explained in the next section) and allows water resistance of 120 meters.
The operation of the L156.1 DATOMATIC meter
In this new challenge, Lange decided to develop the complication in its own way, abandoning the idea of having two chronograph counters and leaving the day and date arrangement intact. But let’s take a closer look at how this L156.1 DATOMATIC works.
Those familiar with the Odysseus will immediately ask “where are the stopwatch buttons?” The answer is simple: they are located exactly where the adjustment of the date and day occurred (and still occurs). Anthony De Haas and his team found the solution in the watch’s winding crown, entrusting it with an additional function. With the crown tightened, the pushers at 2 and 4 o’clock function as a start-stop-reset chronograph, just like most watches with this complication. By unscrewing it, on the other hand, it is possible to go to use the pushers in the same way they were used in the first Odysseus solotempo, so to go forward in the day and big date boxes.
Let us now come to the operation of the complication, because A. Lange & Söhne eliminated the 30- and 60-minute counters, but at first glance it might appear to be a split-seconds due to the position of the hands. The motivation was mainly aesthetic, not to give up the Saxon (and already iconic) style of the Odysseus with the two windows. To meet this need, it was decided to add an additional hand in the center, white in color and with a fairly pronounced spearhead, while the red one serves to measure the time traveled.
With the activation of the chronograph, they will both go into action but with two different timings: the red one will regularly follow the running of the seconds, while the white one will go on until the 60th minute, with each lap carried out by the chrono one.
At 6 o’clock finally we have as always the small continuous seconds counter. Caliber L156.1 DATOMATIC has an oscillating weight of 950 platinum while the power reserve is about 50 hours on maximum winding of the mechanism.
The black dial of the Odysseus Chronograph
In its simplicity, this is perhaps the dial that excites me most about the Odysseus series. The monochromatic look of the clear metal case and black dial, combined with the touch of red on the chronograph hand, makes it exciting in my opinion. Finding this sporty combination on a Saxon watch is really difficult, all the more so if the watch retains the same A. Lange & Söhne’s DNA as all the other collections.
The white rehaut features a black minute track with red details such as the 60 at 12 o’clock. The dial shows the craftsmanship of Lange artisans with incredible guilloché. The dial shows the craftsmanship of Lange’s artisans with incredible guilloché.
Price
Due to the extreme complexity of the A. Lange & Söhne Odysseus Chronograph, the brand will only produce 100 pieces. The retail price is approximately EUR 135,000.00.
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