Fashion|Watch Selling Exhibition To Be a First for A. Lange & Söhne
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Phillips says the German label has never had a monobrand sale.
If ever a watch company has experienced the highs and lows of history, A. Lange & Söhne would be it.
Founded in 1845 in Glashütte, Germany, and its headquarters destroyed by a air raid near the end of World War II, the company was expropriated and nationalized by the East German communist government three years later, in 1948. It was resurrected by its founder’s great-grandson in 1990, little more than two months after Germany’s reunification, and then was purchased by the Swiss luxury giant Richemont in 2001.
In recent years it has quietly produced only about 5,000 prestige watches a year — and within the Richemont family, it has always felt a bit like the distant cousin to such flashier brands as Jaeger-LeCoultre and IWC.
But that profile may be changing as Phillips Perpetual has planned what it calls the world’s first monobrand selling exhibition of A. Lange & Söhne watches from March 9 to 14 at the auction house’s London site.
“Globally, with very few other brands have we seen such an explosion in interest recently, and A. Lange & Söhne’s quality is second to none,” James Marks, international head of Phillips Perpetual, said in a phone interview from his London office. “We recognized that no leading auction house has put together a collection of Lange 1 and Datograph watches to give confidence to collectors and lovers of horology who wish to immerse themselves in these icons of design.”
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The Lange 1, released in 1994, ushered the company back into watch world prominence, followed in 1999 by the Datograph with its flyback chronograph and then, in 2016, the Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon. Variations have included limited editions of as few as 100 pieces, such as the 2019 pink-gold dial version of the Datograph Tourbillon, increasing their values.
While A. Lange & Söhne has never had official ambassadors, historical figures such as Czar Alexander II of Russia and Abdul Hamid II, the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, have worn its watches, as have high-profile customers like President Bill Clinton, Michael Jordan and Brad Pitt.
Perhaps the most influential endorsem*nt within the watch world comes from Philippe Dufour, the master watchmaker who achieved a $5.4 million sale at Phillip’s auction in November in Geneva. In a 2019 interview with Hodinkee magazine, he referred to the Datograph as the best chronograph ever made.
“Mr. Dufour himself wears a Lange Datograph encased in pink gold with a black dial,” Mr. Marks said. “As an affectionate ode to that, some collectors of A. Lange & Söhne have named that model the Dufourgraph.”
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