lot 12

A. Lange & Söhne

Annual Calendar Moonphase

Estimate CHF 15 000 / CHF 20 000
Starting bid CHF 15 000

Hammer price CHF 28 000
Total bids 11
All prices do not include 24% Premium

Specification

CaseRose gold case 750/1000, with a brown leather strap, fixed 18kt rose gold bezel, silver dial with blue alpha-style shape hands and arabic numeral hour markers
StrapBrown alligator, pin buckle
DialAnalog annual calendar, three sub-dials displaying date /day of the week, month, moonphase and small seconds
Cal.L051.3
Ref.238.032
Movement No.134546
Case No.244759
AccessoriesPin pusher
D=40 mm
Year2021

Condition report

Case:244759
Strap:Brown Alligator
Dial:Mint condition
Movement:134546
Amplitude (Dial on top/Lift angle 52):315 degrees
Accuracy (Dial on top):+2 s/day
Box:Yes
Papers:Yes

Details 

A fine, elegant and attractive rose gold complicated wristwatch of the world-famous German brand A. Lange & Söhne, founded in 1845. Purchase year: 2021. Case in 18k rose gold, diameter 40mm, 10.1mm thick. Silver-plated solid-silver dial, yellow gold, rose gold and blued steel hands. Sapphire caseback. Hand-wound caliber L051.3 with a power reserve of up to 72 hours. Functions – indication of local time in hours and minutes, with small seconds hand at 6 o’clock, annual calendar with date and day of the week (at 9 o’clock), month (at 3 o’clock) indicators, and moonphase display at 6 o’clock. Rectangular pushbutton at 2 o’clock used to synchronously advance all calendar displays, with correctors at 4, 8, 9 and 10 o’clock used to set calendar displays separately. Brown leather strap, A. Lange & Söhne 18k rose gold pin buckle. 

Lot essay 

A. Lange & Söhne is one of a few brands featuring two movements with an annual calendar function in different designs. The first was introduced in 2010 as the Saxonia Annual Calendar, offered in rose or white gold. The automatic caliber L085.1 of this model was equipped with the 3/4 rotor of the Sax-0-Mat automatic winding system, as well as a large date indicator, which made A. Lange & Söhne’s proposal extremely attractive – there are not many annual calendars on the market with such a big date indicator. The 1815 Annual Calendar, an alternative to this complication in the brand’s collection, was launched in 2017. For this model, already available in the year of its launch in rose gold (Ref. 238.032, as the present example) and in white gold (Ref. 238.026), a completely new caliber L051.3 was developed with manual winding and traditional analogue calendar displays including a date indicator. These watches turned out to be less expensive compared to both the perpetual calendar (Langematik Perpetual) and the annual calendar (Saxonia Annual Calendar), which used costly solutions with automatic winding and a large date. 

An undoubtedly attractive feature of the 1815 Annual Calendar, as well as many other models in the ‘1815’ collection, is their traditional design and a set of complications characteristic of pocket watches of the 19th and early 20th centuries

An undoubtedly attractive feature of the 1815 Annual Calendar, as well as many other models in the ‘1815’ collection, is their traditional design and a set of complications characteristic of pocket watches of the 19th and early 20th centuries – this is the principle of the ‘1815’ collection formation adopted by A. Lange & Söhne. Hence follows the preferred arrangement of the indicators along the horizontal and vertical axes on the dials of complicated models of the collection, characteristic of complicated pocket watches, as well as the obligatory presence of vertically-oriented Arabic numerals, which give the watch a clearly perceptible technical, and even slightly militaristic, flavour. 

Even more interest in the present example may be facilitated by a rare precision complication, a so-called astronomical moonphase indicator, with a deviation accumulation of one day in 122.6 years. The future owner will undoubtedly be attracted by the interesting and smart design with warm hues of rose gold and ‘airy’ silvered multiple sunken dials, with fine circular grooves and a variety of coloured details, including hands in blued steel, rose gold and yellow gold, and black, high-relief artistically pad-printed numbers and other dial markings. 

Reasons to bid 

The 1815 Annual Calendar Ref. 238.032 should be regarded as a fine purchase for the collector and connoisseur who desires an attractive complicated mechanical wristwatch with useful functions from a world-famous traditional watch brand, the undisputed market leader in German high watchmaking. The combination of typical Lange design features, including the traditionalist’s a la pocket watch dial arrangement, the airy feeling of the rose gold case, subtle white silvered tone of the dial, and fine colour accents, make the present lot highly desirable. The exquisite finishing of the movement’s parts and its typical Lange appearance will impress the heart of any connoisseur, and A. Lange & Söhne’s reputation in these aspects should be recognized as impeccable. 

The exquisite finishing of the movement’s parts and its typical Lange appearance will impress the heart of any connoisseur