Journe or lange

[shafran]

Originally Posted by llngoc

Interesting. What makes you want to get a 1815 Chronograph when you have a Datograph perpetual?

I am interested because I was at one point trying to decide between a Datograph Perpetual, Datograph and a 1815 chronograph. The 1815 got dropped early on as the one I really want is the boutique edition with the blue numerals but it was not obtainable for me.

So it will be interesting to hear from someone who’s already through this experience.

In this case, I would say you probably made the best choice since you already have a Lange (probably one of the best one too). Now you get to experience a Journe.

I wanted a simpler looking watch. I like chronos. I find the dato/perp hard to read the subdials, probably moving on from it.

[llngoc]

Originally Posted by shafran

I wanted a simpler looking watch. I like chronos. I find the dato/perp hard to read the subdials, probably moving on from it.

That’s what I feel even for the current Datograph with the up/down. The dial becomes a little busy. The original 39mm was the best IMHO. Clean and simple.

[Longhorn]

I think the appeal of the Datograph over the 1815 is its historic significance, but I find the 1815 Chronograph more aesthetically appealing with the dial and proportion.

I had inquired about the 1815 chrono boutique last week and the rep said you didn't need to have purchase history to be allocated this piece, but at least the one nearest to me (Houston) is estimating a minimum 1 year wait for it.

[llngoc]

Originally Posted by Longhorn

I think the appeal of the Datograph over the 1815 is its historic significance, but I find the 1815 Chronograph more aesthetically appealing with the dial and proportion.

I had inquired about the 1815 chrono boutique last week and the rep said you didn't need to have purchase history to be allocated this piece, but at least the one nearest to me (Houston) is estimating a minimum 1 year wait for it.

Do they take the Lange already in your collection into account?

[Longhorn]

Originally Posted by llngoc

Do they take the Lange already in your collection into account?

No they didn't count that I had a Lange 1 in my collection since I bought it 2nd hand. For pieces that need purchase history, they care about your name as the original buyer. When they checked to be sure, they said I could buy it once available.

[llngoc]

Originally Posted by Longhorn

No they didn't count that I had a Lange 1 in my collection since I bought it 2nd hand. For pieces that need purchase history, they care about your name as the original buyer. When they checked to be sure, they said I could buy it once available.

Thanks!

[Russell996]

Originally Posted by llngoc

Do they take the Lange already in your collection into account?

This seems to depend on the AD/Boutique as I was asked to supply info on all my Lange’s including pieces purchased used.

[Nav01L]

Originally Posted by mchen42

First of all, I do like lange. The zeitwerk is one of my favorite model. Then, the focus of Journe will never be the very very fine finishing. Their focus is the complicated function and the design of movement.

Well, I don’t agreed with that lange has “far” superior movement finishing. Well, they may do a lot of work on the datograph and zeitwerk but for 1815, IMHO, they are lazy. See the photos for 1815. They will not finish all of the movement if we can not see it.




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Just out of curiosity, what is wrong with that baseplate in your view? Looks fine to me. Lange has sandblasted finish under its wheels, Vacheron and Patek have perlage, but aside from the aesthetic difference, I don’t get how one is more finished than the other? And it’s not like there isn’t enough perlage on this plate either, on all of the contact surfaces. Can’t speak to the intricacies of Journe finishing. All I ever examined live was a Resonnance where some (pretty, but at that price level, inappropriate) CNC applied anglage was combined with such wonky hand anglage that the end result looked seriously disharmonious. Doubt that would have passed QC at Lange or Vacheron. But this Lange movement looks perfectly fine to me. It’s not a very complex thing to begin with and that’s what it looks like. Now if you want to see what the art of making every last corner beautiful looks like, the only big brand where you’ll get close to that before moving into Rexhep or Kari (still counting FPJ as a big brand here, as they are pretty industrial compared to other independents), would be Vacheron. If you take one of those apart, you’ll find angled jewel bearings even under the dial. On the other hand, if you want to see what truly poor “high end” finishing looks like, I’d encourage you to look more towards AP.

[mchen42]

Originally Posted by Nav01L

Just out of curiosity, what is wrong with that baseplate in your view? Looks fine to me. Lange has sandblasted finish under its wheels, Vacheron and Patek have perlage, but aside from the aesthetic difference, I don’t get how one is more finished than the other? And it’s not like there isn’t enough perlage on this plate either, on all of the contact surfaces. Can’t speak to the intricacies of Journe finishing. All I ever examined live was a Resonnance where some (pretty, but at that price level, inappropriate) CNC applied anglage was combined with such wonky hand anglage that the end result looked seriously disharmonious. Doubt that would have passed QC at Lange or Vacheron. But this Lange movement looks perfectly fine to me. It’s not a very complex thing to begin with and that’s what it looks like. Now if you want to see what the art of making every last corner beautiful looks like, the only big brand where you’ll get close to that before moving into Rexhep or Kari (still counting FPJ as a big brand here, as they are pretty industrial compared to other independents), would be Vacheron. If you take one of those apart, you’ll find angled jewel bearings even under the dial. On the other hand, if you want to see what truly poor “high end” finishing looks like, I’d encourage you to look more towards AP.

The baseplate should be completed finished at least. Moreover, it is interesting to see this kind of baseplate only used for some fundamental model like 1815. And, they do whole finishing in some “more expensive” collections.

Yes, I am a critical guy and that is why i am working with Kari for my Vingt8.


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[Nav01L]

Originally Posted by mchen42

The baseplate should be completed finished at least. Moreover, it is interesting to see this kind of baseplate only used for some fundamental model like 1815. And, they do whole finishing in some “more expensive” collections.

Apologies, that’s factually incorrect on multiple levels. First of all, no part of the baseplate you shared a picture of is unfinished. So when you say it should be completely finished, I agree with you, and so do the good people in Glashütte, because it is completely finished. Now whether you like the choice of using sandblasting (a finishing technique among many others and not that much simpler than perlage) as a decoration for the wheel recesses is a matter of taste, but not a matter of whether or not something has been finished. If you want to see unfinished wheel recesses, I have some pictures of AP’s latest in house chronograph for you. There you’ll see the unembellished marks of the CNC lathe and that, you may call unfinished. But if a brand goes through the trouble of treating a surface in such way as to create a harmonious finish they are aesthetically happy with, it’s fairly disrespectful to the work that goes into that to just dismiss it as a partial result. Roger Smith has entire bridges that bear a frozen/sandblasted finish. Would you dismiss their finishing as well? From anything further than 30cm away, the crepit finish of many Greubel movements doesn’t look much different either. Any issues with that too? Even Kari for that matter, will gladly make a sandblasted baseplate for you without the watch being any less appealing as a result. The only thing I can see in your image that isn’t 100% proper is the oil stains, but these are machines. They get oiled and when they age, there’s going to be stains over time.

What’s also incorrect is that this is any different from say a Datograph. If you open that up, the gear recesses on the main plate will look exactly the same, it also has sandblasted finish under its main geartrain. The perlage as a base is on the contact surfaces, to have a flat basis (in that, it is functional) and on the Dato, you’ll find some on the 3/4 plate too, under the levers and gears of the chronograph, but one floor below, under the gears of the main plate, the recesses are sandblasted just like on the simplest 1815. You can even kind of see that from the outside, when you look under the balance wheel. That’s just how Lange baseplates look.

But you are of course free to have different aesthetic preferences and I congratulate you on the Vingt8, an amazing watch, and obviously, however good Lange finishing is, another level still.

[Nav01L]

This is what unfinished looks like (and that’s exactly how Audemars Piguet will sell it to you). Bad enough that the supporting surfaces are just all scratched up from sanding them down, but I could live with that when they sit flush on other parts. The recesses with the nasty CNC marks however, now that’s another level of terrible. You’ll agree that that Lange plate looks nothing like this.

Credit to the naked watchmaker.


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[mchen42]

Originally Posted by Nav01L

Apologies, that’s factually incorrect on multiple levels. First of all, no part of the baseplate you shared a picture of is unfinished. So when you say it should be completely finished, I agree with you, and so do the good people in Glashütte, because it is completely finished. Now whether you like the choice of using sandblasting (a finishing technique among many others and not that much simpler than perlage) as a decoration for the wheel recesses is a matter of taste, but not a matter of whether or not something has been finished. If you want to see unfinished wheel recesses, I have some pictures of AP’s latest in house chronograph for you. There you’ll see the unembellished marks of the CNC lathe and that, you may call unfinished. But if a brand goes through the trouble of treating a surface in such way as to create a harmonious finish they are aesthetically happy with, it’s fairly disrespectful to the work that goes into that to just dismiss it as a partial result. Roger Smith has entire bridges that bear a frozen/sandblasted finish. Would you dismiss their finishing as well? From anything further than 30cm away, the crepit finish of many Greubel movements doesn’t look much different either. Any issues with that too? Even Kari for that matter, will gladly make a sandblasted baseplate for you without the watch being any less appealing as a result. The only thing I can see in your image that isn’t 100% proper is the oil stains, but these are machines. They get oiled and when they age, there’s going to be stains over time.

What’s also incorrect is that this is any different from say a Datograph. If you open that up, the gear recesses on the main plate will look exactly the same, it also has sandblasted finish under its main geartrain. The perlage as a base is on the contact surfaces, to have a flat basis (in that, it is functional) and on the Dato, you’ll find some on the 3/4 plate too, under the levers and gears of the chronograph, but one floor below, under the gears of the main plate, the recesses are sandblasted just like on the simplest 1815. You can even kind of see that from the outside, when you look under the balance wheel. That’s just how Lange baseplates look.

But you are of course free to have different aesthetic preferences and I congratulate you on the Vingt8, an amazing watch, and obviously, however good Lange finishing is, another level still.

I understand your points. Our argument focused on whether lange had the sandblasting on the part under the wheel. From the picture I post, I don’t think lange has done the sandblasting on that part and it looks like that that part is a direct result from CNC. I suppose the sandblasting should be like “frost gold”. Well, it might depend on different technique and skills.

Like I said at the initial comment, I do like lange. The finishing is among the best and should be better than FPJourne. But “far” better is really a controversial word. Maybe far better than AP


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[ajw45]

Originally Posted by mchen42

I understand your points. Our argument focused on whether lange had the sandblasting on the part under the wheel. From the picture I post, I don’t think lange has done the sandblasting on that part and it looks like that that part is a direct result from CNC. I suppose the sandblasting should be like “frost gold”. Well, it might depend on different technique and skills.

Like I said at the initial comment, I do like lange. The finishing is among the best and should be better than FPJourne. But “far” better is really a controversial word. Maybe far better than AP

Huh? Nav01L just posted a pic of what unfinished cnc looks like which looks obviously different from the Lange plate. The Lange plate is clearly finished to remove the CNC and machining makes seen in the AP part. You don't have to think about it, it is self evident...

I don't know if it's easy to say one brand is "better" than the other since I bet both brands have some variability of finish across the product line and the styles are very different, all I'm saying is that Lange baseplate is not what I would call "unfinished".

[Nav01L]

Originally Posted by mchen42

Like I said at the initial comment, I do like lange. The finishing is among the best and should be better than FPJourne. But “far” better is really a controversial word. Maybe far better than AP

That’s not entirely unfair. Pretty much everything in haute horlogerie is far better than AP :) If you want my comparison to FPJ, I’d refer you to my post on one of the last pages of the “why are online pages pushing FPJ” thread, which also resurfaced yesterday.

[MP777]

FBJ for me, like their design language a lot more than ALS, but can’t really go wrong with either

[llngoc]

Originally Posted by Nav01L

That’s not entirely unfair. Pretty much everything in haute horlogerie is far better than AP :).

[Justindo]

Originally Posted by mchen42

First of all, I do like lange. The zeitwerk is one of my favorite model. Then, the focus of Journe will never be the very very fine finishing. Their focus is the complicated function and the design of movement.

Well, I don’t agreed with that lange has “far” superior movement finishing. Well, they may do a lot of work on the datograph and zeitwerk but for 1815, IMHO, they are lazy. See the photos for 1815. They will not finish all of the movement if we can not see it.




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There's nothing wrong with that base plate. The way Lange has finished it is a matter of preference, not quality. Lange's finishing is uniform across all models, unlike Patek. The reason the Datograph is more expensive than the 1815 Chronograph is because of the big date mechanism along with the "Datograph tax". The Datograph base plate looks the same.

[mchen42]

Originally Posted by Justindo

There's nothing wrong with that base plate. The way Lange has finished it is a matter of preference, not quality. Lange's finishing is uniform across all models, unlike Patek. The reason the Datograph is more expensive than the 1815 Chronograph is because of the big date mechanism along with the "Datograph tax". The Datograph base plate looks the same.

I don’t know the reason why only Lange has such preference? I don’t hate Lange. Let us be objective.


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[shaunylw]

Originally Posted by rolexpatek363

Look at the seven GPHG gold medals. They were not awarded by Watchbox.

GPHG awarded Louis Vuitton a diver award this year. I think that’s all that needs to be seen. It’s a complete joke.


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[ajw44]

I have 3 Langes: Dato up/down, Zeitwerk Date, and Zeitwerk Striking Time

I have been looking for some time to get into the world of Journe. The Chronometre a Resonance and Chronometre Optimum are the ones I keep coming back to so often.

If anyone has an idea of how the boutiques work (specifically NYC?), I would love to know the process they put you through before allowing you to so much as inquire about one of their pieces.

I am aware Journe as a whole only produces <1000 watches a year so it is difficult to get one. The prices for some pieces I inquired about on Watchbox are all >$200k, so I am just curious if this is the norm or I can find something more reasonable if I have patience and get on a list, etc.

Any thoughts are much appreciated!

[thekman]

Originally Posted by ajw44

I have 3 Langes: Dato up/down, Zeitwerk Date, and Zeitwerk Striking Time

I have been looking for some time to get into the world of Journe. The Chronometre a Resonance and Chronometre Optimum are the ones I keep coming back to so often.

If anyone has an idea of how the boutiques work (specifically NYC?), I would love to know the process they put you through before allowing you to so much as inquire about one of their pieces.

I am aware Journe as a whole only produces <1000 watches a year so it is difficult to get one. The prices for some pieces I inquired about on Watchbox are all >$200k, so I am just curious if this is the norm or I can find something more reasonable if I have patience and get on a list, etc.

Any thoughts are much appreciated!

I am no Journe expert but when I visited the NYC boutique the best I could get from them was we will put you on our mailing list and we want you to come to our collectors' meetings to get to know you more before we can put you on a waitlist. Given that I live in a different state and actually have a job, I have not been able to make it to any of their Tuesday 5pm collector meetings

[WatchEater666]

The Chicago boutique is run by Burdeens. The guys there are very approachable and honest. I recommend speaking with Josh there and he will shoot straight. They can't do much about Lange's policies but he's not going to bullshit you at all.

[ajw45]

Originally Posted by thekman

I am no Journe expert but when I visited the NYC boutique the best I could get from them was we will put you on our mailing list and we want you to come to our collectors' meetings to get to know you more before we can put you on a waitlist. Given that I live in a different state and actually have a job, I have not been able to make it to any of their Tuesday 5pm collector meetings

LOL, they do that to filter out the unwashed masses that have to work for a living.

I actually think it's kinda a cool model, better than an AD asking you to slip them some cash some other way. I like it, I respect the time the boutiques are trying to put into vetting customers. If it were my brand and I could do that I would consider it... but as a customer it's not for me.

If you don't want me to flip it, I'll sign a buyback right of first refusal, if you want to make sure I'm not going to show up on the local news wearing handcuffs and a new resonance I'll do a criminal background check, but I'm not going to pledge meetings for a mass produced luxury bauble.

[thekman]

Originally Posted by ajw45

LOL, they do that to filter out the unwashed masses that have to work for a living.

I actually think it's kinda a cool model, better than an AD asking you to slip them some cash some other way. I like it, I respect the time the boutiques are trying to put into vetting customers. If it were my brand and I could do that I would consider it... but as a customer it's not for me.

If you don't want me to flip it, I'll sign a buyback right of first refusal, if you want to make sure I'm not going to show up on the local news wearing handcuffs and a new resonance I'll do a criminal background check, but I'm not going to pledge meetings for a mass produced luxury bauble.

I completely understand why they are doing that but they chose to cut all ADs going forward. As far as I know they only have a handful of boutiques in the US. What are people who do not live near a boutique supposed do to get their trust? It sounds unreasonable to expect people from different states to show up on a Tuesday afternoon to suck up to them to buy a watch. At least do it on the weekends. At the end of the day it’s just watches so no big deal but I don’t find it a reasonable model if you only have 4-5 sales point in the US.


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[JR16]

Originally Posted by thekman

I am no Journe expert but when I visited the NYC boutique the best I could get from them was we will put you on our mailing list and we want you to come to our collectors' meetings to get to know you more before we can put you on a waitlist. Given that I live in a different state and actually have a job, I have not been able to make it to any of their Tuesday 5pm collector meetings

Lol I keep getting invited to these and each time think “I work full time and live in a different state…. Why not 7p? Why not a weekend ?”

But maybe they are targeting the level of wealth that no longer needs to work?


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[thekman]

Originally Posted by JR16

Lol I keep getting invited to these and each time think “I work full time and live in a different state…. Why not 7p? Why not a weekend ?”

But maybe they are targeting the level of wealth that no longer needs to work?


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I arrived to the same conclusion. Maybe they are looking for stay at home billionaires


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[CFR]

Originally Posted by ajw44

I have 3 Langes: Dato up/down, Zeitwerk Date, and Zeitwerk Striking Time

I have been looking for some time to get into the world of Journe. The Chronometre a Resonance and Chronometre Optimum are the ones I keep coming back to so often.

If anyone has an idea of how the boutiques work (specifically NYC?), I would love to know the process they put you through before allowing you to so much as inquire about one of their pieces.

I am aware Journe as a whole only produces <1000 watches a year so it is difficult to get one. The prices for some pieces I inquired about on Watchbox are all >$200k, so I am just curious if this is the norm or I can find something more reasonable if I have patience and get on a list, etc.

Any thoughts are much appreciated!

I think you'll find the FPJ boutique process to be pretty straightforward and transparent. That's reflective of the brand in general. For example, FPJ provides their boutiques and (former) US ADs with production number info for specific models, etc. They don't try to fabricate some aura of mystery like so many other brands do.

Pretty sure you can walk into the NYC FPJ boutique and order one of those watches without any problem, especially if you share your history with Lange. Then they'll know you're experienced and thoughtful when it comes to watches -- not just some random person. Then you wait for it, and you will eventually get it without having to play any games. And if you order more than one, then maybe your wait becomes shorter.

Not sure if any of the staff changed in the past 6 months or so, but Michelle (manager) and William have been there forever. There was another guy there the last few times I visited (in the past year) -- can't remember his name -- who is newer and owns a Lange. He was great too.

With a complicated watch like the Optimum or the Resonance, be prepared for some reliability issues and be pleasantly surprised if you experience years of problem-free functioning with regular wear. FPJ has gotten much better about reliability in recent years, so hopefully you'll be fine. He really does make beautiful watches with ingenious designs!

[RoscoPico]

Originally Posted by shafran

I am considering one of these 2 on the secondary market.
The lange 1815 chrono, rg white dial, journe cs rose gold white dial, they actually are priced the same. Forgetting what else I own, which would you get and why.

probably much better bang for your buck on the gray market with ALS.
both tremendous brands, but I would only buy FP at msrp.

[RoscoPico]

Originally Posted by shafran

I know the post has gone ou into tangents, but since I am the op, if any one is interested, I went with a journe al2.

oh shoot glossed right over this, congrats op !
now add a Lange when you are ready for another piece

[GB-man]

I think a lot of people don’t want to sacrifice a Saturday doing a watch happy hour as that time is reserved for the wife/family etc. Almost anyone local can sneak over for a cocktail midweek. I’ll admit it stinks as I’ll never make any of these events because my family takes priority and I’m 400 miles from the nearest boutique. There’s no question metropolitan and well off is the target market. Makes sense.