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A. Lange & Söhne

Founded in 1845 — Glashütte, Saxony, Germany

Brand History

Ferdinand Adolph Lange founded the company in Glashütte, a small town in Saxony, on 7 December 1845, under the name "A. Lange & Cie." He effectively created the precision watchmaking industry in that part of Germany. In 1868, when his son Richard joined the business, the name changed to the current A. Lange & Söhne ("and sons").

During the Second World War the manufacture produced around 13,500 observation watches (the so-called B-Uhren) for the Luftwaffe. On 8 May 1945, the last day of the war in Europe, the workshop was almost completely destroyed in a Soviet bombing raid. In 1948, with Saxony under communist East German control, the company was nationalised; in 1951 it was merged, along with the other Glashütte manufactures, into VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe: the Lange name disappeared from the market for more than forty years.

On 7 December 1990, exactly 145 years after the company's founding, Walter Lange (the founder's great-grandson) relaunched the company together with Günter Blümlein, with backing from several Swiss watch groups. After four years of development, the first collection of the "new" Lange was unveiled in 1994, including the Lange 1 — the brand's official return to the world watchmaking stage.

What Sets It Apart

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Three-quarter plate

A single plate (introduced in 1864) in place of the classic separate bridges: it stiffens the movement and has become one of the brand's visual signatures.

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Unplated German silver

Unlike many Swiss competitors, the movements are left unplated: every imperfection would stay visible, so the finishing has to be flawless from the start.

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Outsize Date

The large twin-disc date display, inspired by the five-minute clock on Dresden's Semperoper opera house, appears on most of the current range.