My minor beef with a major A. Lange & Sohne watch

Although it might be sacriligious to say anything disparaging about such a magnificent watch, it’s a risk I’ll have to take: I don’t particularly like the moonphase display on the otherwise spectacular A. Lange & SohneDatograph Perpetual. While I “get” that Lange wanted to incorporate a full classic perpetual calendar into the already astounding Datograph watch, and most classic perpetual calendar watches have a moonphase indicator, in this case it seems things could have turned out better.

With this timepiece, getting a moonphase indicator in meant a certain amount of crowding had to take place, since all the perpetual calendar displays had to be arranged in the same area with the chronograph dials. The poor little moonphase indicator, way down at the bottom of the dial in its little arc shaped window, just seems kind of there as an afterthought, rather than part of a glorious and unified whole. To get an idea of what I mean, take a look at A. Lange & Sohne’s Lange 1 Moonphase timepiece, or the Langematik Perpetual…there’s no question with either of these that Lange got the moonphase right–spectacularly so. Of course, these watches don’t have quite as much going on, so making the moon disc larger may have been more feasible for Lange from a design standpoint.

Maybe this is one of those perpetuals that is best without it. Taking a lesson from the Ulysse Nardin GMT Perpetual watches, perhaps the aesthetics of the Datograph Perpetual could have been improved if the watch simply omitted the moonphase display.