A. Lange & Sohne Saxonia Triple Split Limited Edition (424.037) A. Lange & Sohne Watch Review

Hi, this is Tim at the 1916 Company. Welcome and thanks for logging on. If you love this watch, email me, Tim Masso at the1916company.com for purchase pricing and availability questions concerning this watch. So today we're discussing a 2021 limited edition of a hundred pieces in rose gold. So this was the second version of the triple split from a Lange & Söhne, technically part of the Saxonia family. The Saxonia triple split arrived as a white gold edition in its first iteration for the 2018 model year. This 2021 edition combines the red gold with the blued sterling silver dial and a 100 piece edition, but it still has the innovative and frankly overwhelming caliber L1321 inside. So there is a lot of excitement here and it's a big watch, but it's no bigger than the double split. If you can wear one, you can wear the other. Even the difference in thickness is negligible. It's big though at 43.2 millimeters in diameter, 16.1 millimeters thick from lug to lug, 51.5 millimeters. It has a nice broad 22 millimeters spacing between the lugs. A big watch with a lot of mass, but also a lot of class. Although it's big, it does not lack in grace. This Glashütte Germany built monster complication does fit on my wrist though. I recommend that if you want the best of proportion, don't go any smaller than this. I can wear this watch just fine, but you can see that the edges, the lugs, they're out to the edge of my wrist and no, it's not going to fit underneath the dress cuff. Though a jacket might pass muster given the domed profile of the bezel. It's a very weighty watch. The strap is lovely. As you can see, we have large rectangular symmetrical scales. We have alligator and black semi-gloss, a little bit of bolstering to fill out the middle and add some volume via stuffing a monotone stitch folded edge. You can see we have calfskin on the bottom, brand new Lange factory strap, no crimping, no gouging and Lange's most deluxe buckle. Even most Lange complications only come with a pin buckle. Some come with a folding clasp that is a snapshot friction fit. And then there is this originally created for the heaviest Lange watches. It features a twin trigger release, so it cannot fly open inadvertently. And then inside to ensure that the strap doesn't accidentally pull through the buckle, there is a little trap door. So you feed the strap through, you can see the use of spring-loaded ceramic pin snaps so that it'll always retain a snappy tolerance. You actually lock it in place. Now the strap physically cannot pull through. And then you can see that it's fixed in place with a set screw. So quite secure. See how the assembly works. You slide it in, you slide this little buckle into the clasp and then you fix it with the set screw. Rolling around the case, very familiar to Lange fans. The notched lugs originally proposed by company co-founder Gunther Blumlein to give them a distinctive profile, but not every Lange watch with these lugs features a set and case band. Many of them are just high polish. I actually like having the set and finish here for a little bit of contrast. The trigger that actuates the split seconds function, which is also the split minutes function, which is also the split hour function, but that little trigger like the corresponding triggers on the other side, you can see a combination of satin and polish, Lange crown with Lange branding, all this 30 meters water resistant. Now the dial is blue, but it's actually a piece of sterling silver. And then the watch is surprisingly sporty. And I'll show you why I say that. It's not just that it's a flyback with a tachymetric scale, but it's actually got a little bit of lumen, a decent amount of lumen. The watch has hands indices, all in rose gold. So they'll never tarnish or oxidize. You can see, we do have the split seconds hand in a different material for a higher contrast and that with a blinding rhodium plate to make it bright as possible. The best way to understand this watch is that it can split two intervals as long as 12 hours in duration. So the original idea for split second chronograph was you could find the gap between two events when the difference between the two outcomes was less than 60 seconds. Then with the double split of 2004, Lange created the ability to split both the seconds and the minutes. And then with the triple split, Lange gives us two coaxial hour hands up at the top that allow us to gauge the difference in hours, minutes, and seconds between two events up to 12 hours. Now it also works as a flyback. So you push the reset trigger and it resets and restarts. This is great if you're timing events that occur in rapid succession. Reset, restart. Great. Fantastic. Very convenient. And then you know when it's going to stop because there's a power reserve indicator right down here, down and up. Manual wind movement, 55 hours, three hertz. We're going to talk about that movement a little bit more in a moment. You can see the dial has a nice pleasing symmetry to it. And then the tachymetric scale outboard can be used with the chronograph to gauge the speed of an object such as a car over a kilometer. Now on the back, the movement is absolutely astonishing. A 46 joule masterpiece with 567 parts. We're talking grand sonnerie. We're talking the most complicated. A sonnerie is going to be one of the most involved and intricate movements regardless of the way it's constructed. There's no shortcut with that type of chiming caliber. This features a lateral clutch, two column wheels, almost 600 parts, screws that are polished and blued, components that are steel and German silver, and decouplers. This is a decoupler split second system. And what that means is like Patek Philippe, which is the other noted user of this system, when you actually split the different times, freezing that secondary display does not slow the movement and cause it to lose time. And that's because the use of a decoupler in the split system. And again, Lange and Patek use this system, but most others who make split second, minute, hour chronograph systems, they do not use decouplers. That adds to the parts and complexity, but on a cost, no object watch like this, absolutely critical and appreciated. Three Hertz beat rate. It is free sprung. So the adjustments are made using those eccentric screws on the balance. It has an overcoil hairspring for concentric breathing and isochronous timing in any physical position. It's a five position adjustment, which you can see right here at center. You could see we have the bridge for the split second functions, including the pincers and the second column wheel. Here's the primary column wheel right here. Column wheel feel on Lange Kronos is absolutely otherworldly. And you could see some of the finishing flourishes are beyond belief. Take a look at the clutch mechanism right here. You can see how we have this spring and a little eccentric screw adjustment mechanism that are both mirror finished. You can see that black polish. That's why it's called black polish. Finished with a diamond paste or on a tin plate. It creates a mirrored finish that only reflects light from one angle. And you can also see the rest of the steel clutch features, not one, but two sharp interior angles where bevels meet in tight confines on a steel components. We have two interior angles in steel, just on that one part. The screws do serve different purposes in general on Lange chronographs. You know that the polished screws represent screws generally associated with the adjustment of timing mechanisms, either for the time or the chronograph. The blued screws, the fired blue steel screws, they fix things in place that are not supposed to move. Now we've got beautiful beveling on both German silver bridges, as well as steel chronograph components. We've got satination and mirror finish on the steel parts. And then we've got streifen because we're not in Switzerland. They're not Cote de Genève, but we've got streifen or stripes across the bridges and then golden chaton cups fixing some of the pivot jewels, including on the clutch, a nod to the way pocket watches were made in Germany during the 19th and early 20th century at the historical Lange & Söhne. So there is a lot to love here. And you can see from every angle, a masterpiece, even places where you can't easily see the decoration. It's there. Take a look at the free hand engraved balance cock. It's buried underneath the chronograph bridge, but there's no difficulty whatsoever seeing the degree of intricacy in the care lavished on a part you can barely even see. And that's what Lange is about on every watch, but especially a flagship and technological showpiece like this. So reach out to team also at the1916company.com for purchase and pricing details.