Lange Timezone Launch Event

July 6, 2005

by Peter Chong

Harmut Knote, Walter Lange and Fabian Krone

I just returned from the simultaneous launch of the new Lange ZeitZone watch.

The story starts with two problems, and of course how they were solved. The first one concerned a matter of live and death of being able to know when and where a particular time was at a particular location, and the second on delivery of the timepieces.

Sir Sandford Fleming, a Canadian railway planner and engineer, outlined a plan for worldwide standard time in the late 1870s.

Sir Stanford was indeed present in the launch, seen left, fuming about missing the train. This was because time on different locations was determined by celestial movement, and by the time he arrived at the train station, his watch (which he claimed to be a Lange pocket watch he purchased from Aldophe Lange himself) was still keeping the time of his home, and he missed the train.

Aldophe Lange himself calculated that the time difference from the Clock Tower at the Zwinger in Dresden to the manufactory in Glashutte was 10.7s.

Sir Stamford then explained how he hit upon the idea of having various timezones around the world, and how the idea was implemented and adopted in a conference held in 1884 in Washington DC. The 24 timezones around the world we observe today is now born.

The idea of simultaneous worldwide launch of the watches, by sending watchmaker emissaries to the points of sales around the world came about from typically Lange thinking of solving the problem of retailers in different parts of the world complaining that they receive the new product after another, et al.
 

The event began with the presentation of the emissaries.

The emissary team

And the presentation of the watches to the emissaries...

Above: Harmut Knote and Fabian Krone presenting the first set to Hartmut Belmann who will travel to New York.

Bielmann signing the certificates.

And bon voyage! Each emissary set off with a journalist of each country following and documenting the progress of the watch as they traverse the world.

On July 8, Glashutte time, a huge tent erected between Lange 1 and Lange 2 buildings will be connected via two way satellite to New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong. And the delivery of the final pieces by the emissary watchmakers to the retailers will be broadcasted to the party in Glashutte.

And now the watches:

Special boxed sets of three ZeitZone watches

 Set of three...

The pink gold, closer up.

Above, another view

And finally, after the hardwork…

Champagne! Somebody’s gotta to drink the stuff.

Peter Chong reporting nearly live from Glashutte, Germany.

Peter Chong, July 2005