1815 "Homage to Walter Lange"

Walter Lange, who passed away in January 2017, took the reins of the family firm in 1990. It was his lifelong wish to revive an invention by his great-grandfather Ferdinand Adolph Lange who, in 1867, conceived of a stoppable jumping seconds hand. This innovation became A. Lange & Söhne's first German patent, registered in 1877 as a "one-second movement with a jumping hand". This mechanism has at last been adapted to a wristwatch: the small seconds hand in the subsidiary dial at 6 o'clock makes six jumps per second, matching the frequency of the balance (21,600 vph). The sweep seconds hand, in contrast, makes one jump between seconds, thanks to a star combined with a tensioned lever arm or flirt. It can be stopped and restarted as required, to take someone's pulse for example, by a pusher at 2 o'clock. Also proposed in white gold or in pink gold, a "pièce unique" in steel was sold at auction for charity.