Lange Watches: Rebirth of a Time Honored Saxon Tradition

Fine German craftsmanship is a hallmark of Lange Watches, which keep time the old fashioned way. Up to 500 parts go into each timepiece.

Coming to eastern Germany, one soon learns that many of the finest watches made in the world are not from Switzerland but from a small village in Saxony called Glashütte, a short drive from Dresden.

Despite wartime catastrophe and years of suppression under communism, the long tradition of watch making in Glashütte has not only survived. It has been reborn.

Glashütte’s fine watch making history dates back to 1845 when Ferdinand Lange moved from Dresden to found a small watch-making company with 15 apprentices. In 1861, son Adolph Lange built the first pocket watch with independent seconds and a single mainspring barrel. This was followed by a series of other innovations and patents that brought fame to the Lange family business and to other fine watch companies that had sprung up around the Lange factory.

But in 1945, on the last day of World War II, Russian bombers chasing the retreating German army destroyed Lange’s main production workshops. Three years later, East Germany’s communist regime seized the company, later forcing grandson Walter Lange to abandon his work and flee his homeland. The Lange family business was dissolved into a nationalized combine to turn out cheap timepieces and the company names and trademark ceased to exist.

The collapse of the communist regime and reunification of Germany in 1990 once again opened the door to Walter Lange to rebuild the company that had been taken from him. Despite cessation of fine watch making in Glashütte over more than 50 years, the special know-how was never forgotten and instead continued to be passed down from generation to generation. With financial support from a Swiss company, IWC International Watch Company Ltd., Walter Lange set about assembling a core workforce made up of the best watchmakers in Glashütte.

In 1994, the re-established “Lange Uhren (Watches) GmbH” presented its first four now famous models to the world. Watch-making history had once again been made.

Lange watches are no ordinary timepieces. Each watch is a handcrafted marvel of German micro-engineering, precision and refinement. Each elegant timepiece is individually designed and produced by Lange’s 220 craftsmen, a process that typically takes 9 months. Up to 500 tiny parts go into each watch and new models can take up to 5 years to design, develop and fabricate.

Not surprisingly, retail prices for a Lange watch start at about $10,000 and can go as high as $300,000. Customers typically must wait for more a year or more to be “presented” with a new Lange watch. A. Lange & Sons makes only a few thousand timepieces a year, the exact number a closely guarded secret.

Lange watches - all of which are mechanical, not electric - share several characteristic features. All models are housed either in 18-carat gold or platinum cases. The case backs are screwed flush onto the cases for water-resistance. All watch glasses are made of sapphire crystal with a hardness of 9 on the Mohs. Scale. The solid gold or platinum winding crowns, embossed with the Lange Signature, and the push-pieces for setting the outsize date, are sealed against ingress of humidity. All cases are meticulously finished and polished by hand, and engraved with the serial number, trademark and hallmark both inside and out.

The movement of Lange watches, however, can create the greatest interest and excitement among connoisseurs. Lange presented the Lange 1 Tourbillon at the 1900 World Exposition in Paris. The watch is designed so that the gravitational force of the Earth exerted on the mechanism is compensated with a carriage or tourbillon that revolves about its axis once a minute. The Tourbillon 1 was priced at 1500 gold marks at the time. Ninety years later, it fetched 1.5 million German marks at a Habsburg auction in Geneva and today is considered to be one of most precious treasures in horological history.

Curiously, among the biggest customers of Lange’s low tech watches are high tech tycoons who have plenty of money and an appreciation for precision non-electric time keeping devices. “We are very much committed to exclusivity”, explains Dr. Frank Müller, Managing Director of Lange Uhren GmbH.

Lange retails its watches only through a very few jewelers in the United States. A modest expansion of the workshop is planned, but world demand for Lange watches and for other fine watches from Glashütte will continue to far exceed the supply for as far as the eye can see. And in keeping with its old fashioned business style, Lange Watches does not have a web site.—