A. Lange & Sohne

A. Lange & Söhne is a German luxury watch manufacturer with over 170 years of history, known for precision engineering and chronographs. Ferdinand Adolph Lange founded the company in 1845 in the historic town of Glashütte. With a curiosity that went beyond watchmaking, Lange’s inventive spirit set the pioneering tone for A. Lange & Söhne from the genesis of the brand. Inspired by his travels through France, Lange began using the new metric system in watchmaking instead of the traditional duodecimal ligne as length unit, built his first micrometer that could measure millimetres to the thousandth, and invented various tools including hand-powered face-lathe to slide-rules and dixieme gauges.

When Ferdinand Adolph Lange died in 1875, his sons Emil and Richard Lange took over the company. Both brothers proved to be exceptional in their respective fields. Emil managed the brand’s business operations and was awarded the cross of the Knight of the French Legion of Honour for his services as an exhibition juror at the Paris World’s Fair in 1900 and the presentation of the Jahrhunderttourbillon (tourbillon of the century). Richard took after his father and advanced Lange senior’s inventions and patents such as quart repeater and chronograph.

In 1898, German Emperor Wilhelm II commissioned A. Lange & Söhne to make a pocket watch to be presented to Sultan Abdul Hamid II during an official visit of the Ottoman Empire. To this day, the watch remains in the collection of the Topkapi Palace. Fashion changed at the turn of the 20th century, demand for pocket watches dwindled to make way for flat watches for men.

Throughout the two world wars, A. Lange & Söhne maintained production and their hand-made high-quality watches until 8 May 1945, the last day of the World War II when the Lange Stammhaus was destroyed in an air raid. The Glashütte watch companies, including A. Lange & Söhne was nationalised in 1948.

In 1990 Ferdinand Adolph Lange's great-grandson, Walter Lange, re-established A. Lange & Söhne, marking a new chapter in the horologist’s history with the introduction of the A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1. The definition of bold design, the Lange 1 family of watches features the brand’s heritage elements, such as the three-quarter plate patented by the company’s original founder, and iconic innovations like the off-centre dial configuration and the novel outsize date display.

All A. Lange & Söhe watches contain mechanical instead of quartz movements. The A. Lange & Söhne movements are developed, produced and assembled by the manufacturer itself. The brand is also celebrated for its complicated watches, including chronographs, split-seconds chronographs and perpetual calendars. The modern Lange watch families now encompass the Lange 1, Zeitwek, Saxonia, 1815, Richard Lange and Odysseus.

Due to their limited production, A. Lange & Söhne watches are rare, underscoring the brand’s significance in the collector's market. Their ‘Tourbillon pour le mérite’ model was created with only 50 editions, demonstrating groundbreaking technical details including a ticking train driven with a chain fusée. In May 2022, Christie’s achieved a world record price for an A. Lange & Söhne Datograph Up/Down model Ref. 405.836 at auction, realising HK$2,268,000.

Today, A. Lange & Söhne continue to push the boundaries for what is possible in horology. Each creation symbolises the brand's experimental engineering philosophy. In particular, the signature A. Lange & Söhne moonphase is a nod to traditional horology and celestial navigation.