In 1884 at the international Meridian Confe-rence in Washington D.C. the world was sub-divided into 24 time zones. 100 years later, when communications and mobility had advanced sufficiently for these time differences to be significant, watches indicating them suddenly made sense.
Today, Lange & Söhne, using the basic Lange 1 watch base, has created the ideal timepiece: Home time is displayed on the larger of the two off-centre dials, a second pair of hands shows the time in another zone on the smaller dial – the former subsidiary seconds dial of the original LANGE 1. The zone time is easy to set, thanks to a push piece and a rotating city ring. But if the user is abroad and wants the local time to become ‘home time’ for the duration of the stay, an adjustment mechanism makes it possible to reverse the priority of the two times. In this case, the main dial and the date display are synchronized to the time at the user’s foreign domicile while the subsidiary dial can be set to indicate either the time at home - or the time in any other part of the world.





Another problem with time zones is that days and nights begin and end at different times in the 24 different time zones. For this reason, separate and synchronized day/night indications for the home and zone times are indicated by the passage of a small arrow on each dial into a day and night phase – bright for day and dark segments for night.
A trip around the world, aboard an aircraft or just virtually, begins by pressing the button at 8 o’clock. In one-hour increments, this button advances not only the rotating city ring by one time zone – geographically speaking towards the East – but also the hour hand of the zone-time dial which thus automatically remains synchronized with the selected city. A small arrow on the zone-time dial at 5 o’clock, the one closest to the city ring, is the point of reference for setting a second time. The world is circumnavigated after the button has been pressed 24 times. Forming a contrast with the golden Roman numerals applied on the home-time dial, those on the zone-time dial are printed in Arabic numerals.
The wearer can also interchange the home time and zone time displays by having the local time at the foreign destination displayed on the main dial and to synchronize the patented outsize date as well. This time swap is made possible by the city ring as a reference and a setting mechanism that, while the time zone button is pressed to freeze the hour hand on the subsidiary dial, allows the former home time on the larger dial to be changed to the new local time simply by turning the crown. Apart from the fact that it may be necessary to correct the date by one day – a convenient rapid date corrector is provided for this purpose – this is all it takes to set the hands of the main dial to the redefined home time. Both dials still inform the user whether it is night or day at the current location and at home.
Based on the manually wound Lange L031.1 Calibre movement, this watch of course possesses all of the features of the Lange 1 – including more than 72-hour power reserve thanks to the twin mainspring barrels, the patented outsize date, four screwed gold chatons, the screw balance with the whiplash precision index adjuster, and a hand-engraved balance cock. The train that drives the zone-time display is configured above the three-quarter plate and can be admired through the sapphire-crystal caseback. The intermediate-wheel cock integrated in the train also bears the personal signature of a Lange master engraver.
The Lange 1 Time Zone (41.9 mm) comes in either 18 carat yellow or red gold and is equipped with the Lange Manufacture Calibre L031.1 manually-wound movement.


Source: April-May 2005 Issue

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