This weekend, I brought my 1815 Up/Down from the beloved German brand A. Lange & Söhne to the Audrain Concours d'Elegance in Newport, Rhode Island. Like most ritzy car shows, it’s also a hotbed for watch spotting and, as the event’s sponsor, Lange even had master engraver Robert Arnold on site to demonstrate his craft.
Surrounded by million-dollar supercars, cliffside mansions, and more pastels than Easter Sunday, I handed my 1815 over so Arnold could give it the equivalent of a horological autopsy. Because inside every Lange is something that differentiates the brand from nearly every other watchmaker. Every Lange & Söhne watch has a balance cock—a tiny bridge about the size of a watermelon seed.
Its job is to hold the regulating organ, a watch’s tiny beating heart (made up of the balance wheel and hairspring) that controls the speed of the movement and gives it its steady tick-tock. And this balance cock takes on even greater importance at Lange, because each one is hand-engraved with a delicate floral motif by an artisan at its manufacturer in Glashütte, Germany. Because no two engravers share the exact same style, each piece is as unique as a fingerprint—so distinct that Lange’s watchmakers can look at the pattern under a loupe and tell you who engraved it.
Between strokes of his graver tool, he took my 1815 Up/Down, made around the year 2000, and looked at it under his microscope. He pointed out the signature flourishes of the pattern that showed this particular engraving was by Helmut Wagner, a Master Engraver and former head of Lange’s engraving department. I already loved my Lange, but this little nugget of knowledge makes me love it just a bit more—not just because Wagner is the guy for Lange, but because I can almost close my eyes and imagine him toiling away on this little piece of German silver, just for my wrist.
Looking at a movement, its handcraft, and telling you exactly whose hands made it is something most watch brands can’t do. It’s one piece of what makes Lange & Söhne so special. Since introducing the Datograph in 1999, Lange has become something of a chronograph specialist, making it a fitting partner for the Audrain.
Drivers love to time things with their chronographs—or at least, they love the idea of timing things with their chronographs—so there were plenty of Langes, and other impressive timepieces, to spot among the procession of classic cars that took place all weekend during the Audrain Newport Concours and Motor Week. The weekend-long event culminates with the Concours d’Elegance at Fort Adams, a United States Army post dating to 1799. A Concours d’Elegance is a competition where rare, vintage, and classic cars gather to be judged on their beauty, historical accuracy, and restoration.
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