24 October 1994 is a special date in the history of A. Lange & Söhne. It was the day on which the press conference after the re-foundation of the company took place in the Dresden residential palace. At the event, company founder Walter Lange and his partner Günter Blümlein acquainted journalists and dealers with the first four timepieces of the new era, among them the Lange 1. Because the daily newspapers covered the event in their next-day editions, the outsize date had been set to 25. Since then, this number has been shown on all photos of every Lange watch with an outsize date display. Today, the media and social networks spread the news in real time. So in 2016, as a concession to the digital era, the event date and the displayed date are identical.
The Lange 1 Time Zone has ranked among the most popular models of the Lange 1 watch family since 2005. The clearly organised dial delivers a single-glance reading of home time and the time in a second time zone. The time zone is set with a lateral pusher. It advances the rotating city ring with the 24 place names from west to east. On the ring, Dresden – instead of Berlin as in the standard version – represents Central European Time. Additionally, the hour hand on the small subsidiary dial moves forward by one step with each actuation of the pusher. An ingenious synchronisation mechanism also makes it possible to transfer the zone time on the subsidiary dial to the main dial.
Subtle colour changes in the design of the city ring differentiate it from the standard version. The dots between the city names and GMT are blue instead of red. Now, the previously black peripheral ring of the second time zone has the same blue hue as well.
The case in 18-carat honey gold has a diameter of 41.9 millimetres. The exclusive material is harder than other gold alloys. The lavishly hand-finished manufacture calibre L031.1 is assembled twice and has a power reserve of three days. Limited to 100 watches, the Dresden edition of the Lange 1 Time Zone is available exclusively in the 17 A. Lange & Söhne boutiques.
