it draws from heritage. Lange's watches are often described as more "austere" or "Teutonic" in appearance than watches produced by comparable Swiss firms. Case and dial design are straightforward, confident, solid and comforting. Recurrent design elements are the outsize date, inspired by the stage clock of Dresden's Semperoper, solid gold or platinum cases, the shape of the soldered lugs, the galvanized solid-silver dials and the customized typography based on the “Engravers” font from 1899. The company employs hand-finishing for all their pieces. A. Lange & Söhne applies same level of top hand-finishing on all their pieces from the basic Saxonia to Grand Complication. The hand-engraved balance cock is the brand's signature technique. A. Lange & Söhne uses a multitude of different surface decorations. The most frequent finishing techniques are chamfering, circular graining, contour grinding, engraving, mirror polish, linear finish, perlage, Glashütte ribbing, sunray finish and black polish. Movements Lange's movement design and decoration is distinctively Glashütte in appearance, eschewing typically Swiss features, such as multiple bridges and cocks, or pearlage, "Glashütte stripes", hand-engraved balance cocks and screwed gold chatons. The movements are made from a metal known as German silver, as opposed to the plated brass typically used for Swiss movements. It requires extra care and attention of the watchmaker. One wrong move carries the risk of tainting and tarnishing the material. Each watch movement is designed and made entirely in-house. Since 1994, the brand has developed 63 different movements. Many of the movements feature patented constructions and advancements. The brand is especially known for its chronograph mechanisms. According to Lange's director of product development, Anthony de Haas, it takes four to five years to develop a watch with a new caliber. The movement numbers are named regarding their development years. For example, L043.1 (Zeitwerk) indicates that work on this particular Lange (L) movement started in 2004 (04), that it is the third project of that year (3) and that it is the first version of this caliber (.1). Prototypes undergo rigorous load tests before going into series production. The testing routine includes a shaking test, a hammer test, which simulates a free fall from a height of one meter onto a hardwood floor, a pusher test, during which each pusher is pressed 50,000 times and a climatic chamber, where the watches are exposed to temperatures from minus 20 degrees to 80 degrees. Notable inventions and patents 1864, Stable three-quarter