Selection 2011: the 12 watches of the year

[marios_ch]

Worldtempus chooses 12 watches of 2011 that piqued our curiosity, whet our appetite, and made us want to look for more of the same in 2012.

Elizabeth Doerr

Another year and hundreds of watches richer…the watch industry is alive and awake, and the connoisseur was able to enjoy beautiful timepieces from every category this year: from thick to thin, old to new, post-modern to classic. It was all here.

In choosing a top 12 of personally moving timepieces for this year, Louis Nardin and I (the editors of Worldtempus) faced a difficult task. However, in my opinion, each of the following 12 masterpieces adds to the long history of horology in its own way. To see the choices of my French-language colleague Louis Nardin, please click here.

You, the reader, should be aware that these choices are subjective and therefore subject to discussion. My choices are fully individual, personal, and emotional – and you may not agree with me at all.



This year, the 12 watches that impressed me most are unique works of art and therefore priced in the highest category – with one exception. This final watch, which will be unveiled to you on December 20, is as wonderful as they come, but priced magnificently reasonably, which is one of the reasons I chose it. Each of my choices is outfitted with innovative mechanics, ten of which are purebred manufacture movements and two of which are based on existing hand-wound bases.

One thing all 12 of these timepieces have in common is that they will all hold the connoisseur in thrall – which is important because emotion is a crucial element of a mechanical luxury watch.

[marios_ch]

SELECTION 2011 - Lange Zeitwerk Striking Time by A. Lange & Söhne


An offshoot of the Lange Zeitwerk family, this resoundingly unique timepiece also represents the first repeating movement manufactured by the company that kick-started watchmaking in Saxony 166 years ago.


5 December 2011

Elizabeth Doerr

This particular wristwatch was a long awaited one for dedicated fans of the Saxon brand. Until the introduction of this watch, A. Lange & Söhne had never fully made its own repeating timepiece. In the pre-war incarnation of the company, pocket watches outfitted with repeating movements were based on Swiss ébauches, sourced either from Audemars Piguet or Jaeger-LeCoultre. The modern version of this company, which was founded after Germany’s reunification in 1991, had not yet produced a wristwatch containing a repeating movement. Anthonie de Haas becoming Lange’s technical director in 2004 practically ensured that a repeater was on the way since this particular complication was his specialty with his former employer, movement creator Audemars Piguet Renaud et Papi.



De Haas explained during the SIHH 2011 that the Lange Zeitwerk introduced in May 2009 yielded the perfect platform for the repeating mechanism. The disks providing the unusual timepiece’s digital time display needed more energy than a conventional one, so a movement with an extra-strength mainspring and a type of constant force device was conceived by Lange’s clever engineers. Manually wound Caliber L043.1/2, by the way, also had enough energy left over for further complications – providing an excellent opportunity to use the experience gained in the restoration of grande complication pocket watch no. 42500 to add a chiming function to it.

The Lange Zeitwerk’s one-piece, in-house gongs and hammers, which can be precisely timed thanks to the harmonious digital display, are visible right on its interesting dial. A button located at 4 o’clock on the case can turn the sound off if desired: when pressed, the hammers are lifted out of their miniscule dial recesses and away from the gongs, locking them into place until the button is pressed again. The gongs are secured to the case band for added resonance, with the quarter hour strike easily discernible from the “bong” at the top of the hour thanks to its higher pitch.

The Lange Zeitwerk Striking Time is available in an unlimited 44.2 mm white gold case with black dial and in a platinum case of the same size with a rhodium-plated dial that is strictly limited to 100 pieces.

http://www.worldtempus.com/en/news/top- ... ge-soehne/

[antonis_ch]

Τι να πει κανεις για την Lange??! $

[eisenberg]

Τα αλλα υποψηφια ποια ηταν βρε παιδια,δεν μου ανοιγει το λινκ

[Megalos]

Τα αλλα υποψηφια ποια ηταν βρε παιδια,δεν μου ανοιγει το λινκ

στο site δεν τα αναφερει ολα .. μονον αλλα δυο
το Ari της Eva Leube
και το Emperador coussin tourbillon automatique της Piaget