Owner review: A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Small Seconds by @watchesandwords

“The Swiss make the world´s best watches – so do the Germans”

This once was the funny slogan of a well known newspaper and journal campaign by A. Lange & Söhne in the mid 1990s. It shows the two watches “IWC Da Vinci” and “Lange 1” side by side. Of course, the add compares two watches of the highest quality from the former LMH (Les Manufactures Horlogeres, formed by Günter Blümlein) luxury supergroup in watchmaking to which both brands belonged back in the days. Impossible for me to consider to buy once.

But to my joy and pleasure there was the elegant and well made small 1815 wristwatch – not as outlandish as the Lange 1 but a very posh watch indeed. This watch has the perfect design: it is a small and simple watch, time only, no date, leather strap, precious metal, thin, manual wind and a silver dial always easy to read. For many years this small 36 mm watch with its clear dial and the small seconds was the only affordable watch from the most prestigious brand in Glashütte I could think about. The 1815 was never too expensive, for a very long it was a watch absolutely “under the radar”. It was by far the most affordable watch from A. Lange & Söhne, it was the entry to the world of the top level pieces. It is neither a Lange 1 nor a chronograph or a tourbillon. It is just a well balanced conservative yellow gold watch and it also looks great on a bracelet.

Elegant watch, beautiful movement, very conservative

The watch I am writing about is the reference 206.021 with the movement cal. L941.1, 21 jewels, manually wind with 45 hours power reserve and the typical German ¾ plate movement with 4 screwed gold chatons and a silver dial with Arabic numerals. The dial is very clear and easy to read with its elegant long blued hands and the railway minute track. It has no lumen material – so you hardly see anything during the nighttime.
The Lange 1815 was and is a super conservative watch and the whole apperance looks like a lovely wall clock, a regulator pendulum clock from a former Glashütte era (just like a piece from Ferdinand A. Lange, Strasser & Rohde, J. Friedrich Gutkaes, Paul Stübner, Ludwig Trapp) – the watch is pure German watchmaking design.

This watch will not be recognized

Watch enthusiasts like it a lot, when they are addressed upon the watch they are wearing, when they are secretly admired for the taste or the piece they have on the wrist. But this never ever happens. And so, they sometimes feel sad. If you wear the 1815 it is all the same – it never happens that people ask you anything about your watch. But if you are the lucky owner of a simple 1815 this does not bother you in the slightest. You have freely decided on this unobtrusive watch and everytime you look down to your wrist and to this beautiful watchdial you feel fully convinced about this classic design and the quality made in Glashütte.

Yes or No?

If you flip through the following criteria, you might find the answer to the “Is-the-1815-Time-Only-Small-Seconds-the-right-watch-for-me-Question”:

1 you admire watches Made in Glashütte, Saxony, Germany
2 you like a perfect designed ultimate time-only watch
3 you like to have an entry level watch from A. Lange & Söhne
4 you are not afraid of high service costs
5 you can wear 36 mm casesize watches
6 you like the special movement design of A. Lange & Söhne watches
7 you like the yellow gold case material
8 you are old and mature enough for a conservative watch
9 you do not feel lonely with a pure German Glashütte watch design
10 you can handle a watch with no readability during nighttime

Pros:

– small size

– perfect anti-mainstream design

– beautiful movement

Cons:

– grandfather design in a yellow gold case

– service cost might be high

– too unobtrusive, too underestimated

Quality
100

Style
95

Value
70

Wearability
90