A. Lange & Söhne "First Series" Lange 1 ref. 101.002 Review

October 1994 is one of the few dates in modern watchmaking that genuinely earns the word landmark. That's when Walter Lange and Günter Blümlein put four watches in front of the press in Dresden and restarted a company that had spent more than four decades out of business. The Lange 1 was the one everybody went home talking about, with its off-center dial, outsize date lifted from the five-minute clock at the Semper Opera House in Dresden, and a layout where no indication crowds another. 

There were only three Lange 1 references at launch. The 101.001 came in yellow gold with a champagne dial and gold hands, the 101.005 in platinum, and this one, the 101.002, in yellow gold with an argenté dial and blued steel hands. The case measures 38.5mm, and if it wears bigger than that suggests, it's the asymmetry doing the work, rather than the diameter. 

The solid caseback that separates the first series from everything after 

The earliest Lange 1s were closed at the back. Sapphire display backs only arrived in 1995 under a separate run of references, and solid-back production had wound down completely by 1996. There's a lovely irony in that, since the watch that is credited with reintroducing German finishing to the world kept its movement entirely to itself. Peek inside the caseback, and you'll find the note that the case was made in Geneva for Lange in Glashütte, which tends to surprise anyone who assumes every part came from Saxony. 

Hidden away underneath is the hand-wound caliber L901.0, the movement that set the house vocabulary for the next thirty years. It has a German silver three-quarter plate, a hand-engraved balance cock, gold chatons, and twin mainspring barrels good for around three days of running. Every Lange caliber since has been measured against it, and most of them are still recognizably its descendants. 

This example dates to circa 1995 and is offered in like-new condition with its original certificate. Lange has never published production figures, though solid-back Lange 1s across all references are generally thought to run into the low hundreds at most. Add a yellow gold case at a moment when yellow gold is very much back in favor, and the timing looks rather good.