Skip to content
LUXIGATE

The house of A. Lange & Söhne

0 pieces on the floor →

The house

A. Lange & Söhne

Founded
1845
Country
Germany
Based in
Glashütte

Ferdinand Adolph Lange founded his workshop in 1845 in Glashütte, a poor Saxon mining town he chose deliberately, and effectively created the German watch industry around it. By 1900 Lange pocket watches were among the most precise in the world.

Then the twentieth century happened to it twice: the factory was bombed on the last day of the Second World War, and what remained was expropriated by East Germany in 1948. The name disappeared for forty years.

It came back in 1990, when Walter Lange — the founder's great-grandson — returned after reunification with Günter Blümlein and started again. The first four watches arrived in 1994. The Lange 1, with its off-centre dial and outsize date, was immediately recognised as something new rather than a revival, and the house has been held in the first rank since.

Known for

  • Lange 1

    The 1994 watch that re-established the house, with its outsize date.

  • Datograph

    A chronograph widely held to be the finest in current production.

Before you buy one

Lange movements are finished to a standard you can see and are worth looking at: untreated German silver, hand-engraved balance cock, screwed gold chatons. Any of these missing or poorly done on a watch presented as a Lange is a serious warning.

Production is small and gold-cased examples dominate; a steel Lange is rare enough that an unexplained one deserves scepticism. Service goes back to Glashütte and takes months — factor it in.

Luxigate doesn’t authenticate pieces. For anything you’re serious about, have it checked independently before you pay. How buying works

Last revised 22 Oct 2026.