A. Lange & Söhne Datograph: Beyond the Wall (VIDEO BLOG)

There are luxury watches that come, go, and vanish from the collective imagination of the enthusiast community. And then there are models like the A. Lange & Söhne Datograph, a seismic Saxon shockwave that rocked Swiss haute horlogerie to its core and captivated a world of collectors.

The 1999 launch of the A. Lange & Sohne Datograph was a moment that redefined the watch industry on manifold levels. East German watchmaking, long considered a “feel good” story of plucky underdogs and capitalist resilience, suddenly vaulted to eye-level with Geneva’s elite. Lange, then something of a well-kept connoisseur’s secret, exploded into the mainstream consciousness.

Naturally, Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin were sent scrambling to rethink their vaunted standards of fit, finish, and detail. Yes, the first Lange Datograph was *that* good.

And it remains *that* good sixteen years after blitzing Basel. The Datograph‘s 39mm platinum case and black dial remain as striking today as they did in the Millennium Bug era. Each studied flourish from the contrast of the polished and brushed facets to the immaculate soldered lugs scintillates while enticing admirers to look even closer.

A dial of jet-black punctuated by white gold indexes, hands, and the “outsize date” frames offers superb legibility and a face that hasn’t aged a day since the late twentieth century. That many of these styles cues hail from the late nineteen century should serve to compound the lesson: Lange designed the Datograph for the long haul, mechanically and aesthetically.

Beneath that black beast of a dial is the main event. As hard as the exterior hits, true beauty lies within, and the Lange Datograph is gorgeous. More precisely, the caliber L951.1 is gorgeous.

In development for four years (hence, L”95″), the L951.1 is like a one-stop gallery of Saxon watchmaking’s finest traditions realized at a virtuoso level. Each bridge and lever is beveled and mirror-polished. Each screw head is black polished – as are the swan’s neck regulator, plate over the escape wheel, and caps of each column of the chronograph’s column wheel.

The golden nickel-copper glow of the “German Silver” endows the Lange Datograph‘s soul with a warmth and charm that is rare in the frigid rhodium gleam of most Geneva Seal calibers. Although A. Lange & Sohne movements helped to pioneer the return of the “3/4 bridge” as a signature of modern Saxon watchmaking, their absence in the Datograph is a blessing to devotees of high horology; gazing through the deep and complex jungle of machinery behind the “Dato’s” sapphire case back is nothing less than hypnotic.

“Legendary” is a platitude; almost all superlatives follow suit. This watch, the original A. Lange & Sohne Datograph, is a watch that changed the language of Francophone watch snobs. A luxury watch as special as this one deserves its own suite of adjectives; its very name should be a synonym for excellence. Perhaps in the future, when revolutionary and game-changing watches emerge, we’ll simply call them “Datograph.”

See the original A. Lange & Sohne Datograph in high-resolution images at www.watchuwant.com