Still the chronograph I measure the others against
By Marco Bellini, Zurich ·
Patek's 5172 is a good chronograph. So is Vacheron's Cornes de Vache. Neither is the one I look at when I want to remember why I learned this trade.
The L951.6 is the Datograph movement with a power reserve indicator added. The original Datograph caliber of 1999 made a lot of people in the Vallée de Joux uncomfortable, and I understand why. Column wheel, flyback, a precisely jumping minute counter, the outsize date. From the back it is layered like a city seen from a plane, levers at different heights, each with a polished flat, a bevelled edge and a bright tip where it meets the next part. The Up/Down of 2012 brought the reserve to 60 hours and put the indicator on the dial, which on a hand-wound chronograph is plain good sense.
Watch the chronograph start through the back and you understand the order of things. Press the pusher, the column wheel turns one step, a lever drops into the gap between two columns, the clutch wheel swings in and meshes with the driving wheel that sits on the fourth wheel. Stop, and a brake lever touches the chronograph wheel so the seconds hand halts exactly where it should, without a flick. Reset, and the hammers fall on the heart cams together. None of this is new in principle. What is unusual is that every lever has been shaped so the action feels clean at the pusher, with a short, definite click and no sponginess. That is regulating the mechanism as well as the balance, and it is where many chronographs at half this price are lazy.
I have no idea how many hours of hand finishing go into one. Lange doesn't say and I won't guess. A lot.
The problems. 41 mm by 13.1 mm in platinum is heavy, heavy enough that you notice it every time you lift your arm to read it, and the strap needs a firm buckle. The black dial is beautiful but the crystal over it shows every fingerprint. 30 m, as usual. And at 116,000 to 122,000 USD you are firmly in the territory where an independent could build you something with your name in the queue.
Che bello, though. Every time I've tried one on in a boutique I had it upside down within ten seconds, and the person behind the counter knew exactly why.
If you want one chronograph for life and you care about the movement more than anything, this. If you want to wear it every day in August, the platinum will annoy you.