The A. Lange & Söhne Conundrum

When world-class watchmaking meets modern luxury headaches.

Good morning. This one took a day longer than expected, but should make for a nice Sunday read. First, if you like watch straps, I’d appreciate your feedback here (1-min survey).

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The A. Lange & Söhne Conundrum

This year’s Honeygold Odysseus.

A. Lange & Söhne is a conundrum. No one questions its watchmaking. As Philippe Dufour and the high priest of horology have put it, Lange makes the finest serially produced watches in the world. But lately, some die-hard collectors have been grumbling.

I love Lange. The watches, watchmaking, everything. It’s one of the most important watch stories of the past 30 years. We could dismiss much of the online chatter as just that. Lange boutiques seem to be selling watches just fine, thank you very much, and thousands of happy clients keep on buying and wearing Lange.

Sure, its secondary market has been hit more than others, but everything’s down. The original Datograph ref. 403.035 probably best illustrates the market:

Original Datograph prices, according to Chrono24. Once a $100k watch, it’s now regularly available for half that.

That’s no indicator that its watchmaking has declined—it’s unfortunate that any grumbling distracts from the excellent watches coming out of Glashütte. This year, Lange released the wearable 1815 34mm, that monster $600k Minute Repeater Perpetual, and it just added a pink gold Zeitwerk Date.

To talk about what’s up with Lange, I called Tim Green, head of commercial at UK-based reseller Subdial, who’s been collecting, buying, and selling Lange for a while.

What We Love About Lange

A closer look at the remontoire bridge as seen on the new pink gold Zeitwerk Date.

In a 1999 interview, the great Günter Blümlein, who revived Lange, was asked to respond to the criticism that Lange movements are anachronistic. He said:

It is our purpose to follow the path of watchmaking tradition in Saxon. Naturally this leads to sometimes ‘anachronistic’ solutions. We try to manufacture timepieces that are an aesthetic highlight for our customers' eyes, even at the ‘cost’ of less efficient production. A function may be anachronistic, but beauty never is.

Phillips’ Logan Baker told me this is his favorite explanation for what makes Lange Lange.

But Lange still embraced innovation. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in the Zeitwerk, which won the GPHG’s Aiguilles d'Or (Best in Show) in 2009 when it was released. It’s still the only non-Swiss watch to win the show’s top prize. Since the new Zeitwerk Date is the brand’s latest release, let’s take a minute to remember why.

A refresher on the Zeitwerk remontoire

The Zeitwerk remontoire. Image: Courtesy of Lange.

The Zeitwerk Date doesn’t move hands—it instantly jumps three large discs (hours, minute tens, and minute units), which requires a powerful impulse every 60 seconds. To manage this, Lange uses a remontoire: a small spring between the mainspring and escapement that stores and releases energy at precise intervals. Here’s how it works:

1. Energy storage: The mainspring supplies energy to the remontoire spring, which sits on the third wheel, between the minutes and seconds wheel.

2. Split-wheel architecture: The third wheel is split in two. One remains stationary, while the other receives energy from the remontoire and passes it to the escapement.

3. Regulated release: A blocking mechanism with Y-shaped levers holds the remontoire in place until the seconds wheel rotates a roller once per minute, unlocking it for an instant.

4. Timed impulse: This releases the stored energy in a powerful pulse that drives the discs, then immediately re-tensioning it for the next minute.

5. The Windflüge: The energy required to jump all three discs is only needed once an hour. For the other 59 minutes, there’s excess energy. Lange solved this with a tiny friction brake called the Windflüge ("wind break"). When the remontoire releases its power, the Windflüge spins like a mini revolving door to dissipate unused energy.

This precise choreography of gears and brakes happens 1,610 times a day for three days straight—mechanical poetry rooted in Blümlein’s original vision.

The Grumbles

Sadly, you won’t find many Reddit threads or group chats about remontoires and Windflüges. Instead, you might find those collector grumbles, usually focused on: