Impressions: A. Lange & Söhne 1815

The watch manufacturer A. Lange & Söhne was established in Glashütte in 1845 by Adolph Lange, born 1815. His intention was to bring jobs and wealth to a low mountain valley in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) in Saxony, Germany, closed to the Czech border by establishing a watch industry. The intention was to stimulate people to specialise themselves as suppliers for a manufacturing industry. In a way, it was a more or less simultaneous development like in the region of le Locle and la Chaux-de-Fonts in the Swiss Jura, another low mountain region, close to the French border.

Over the years, the A. Lange & Söhne company established itself with genius engineering and sophisticated finishing as a top tier player in the world-wide watch market. With the break-down of Nazi- Germany, the Soviet occupation and the following socialisation of the whole industry, the company was seized from the Lange family and transferred into the state combine GUB (Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe – Glashütte Watch Factory) that united all Glashütte watch producers in one big entity.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of Germany, Walter Lange, a Grandson of the founder Adolph Lange, re-established A. Lange & Söhne, Glashütte, in 1991 by the help of IWC and it’s back then CEO Günter Blümlein, took over the old building of the company, the workers and machines and started over after a time of developing and designing new wrist watches. In other words, the watch production never stopped, just due to a changing political framework, the company continued to exist for some 45 years in a different way.

The first collection of watches was presented in 1994 and as of 1996, the watches became widely available in shops selling high-end watches, such as Patek Philippe. In that year 1996 this entry- level watch type 1815 (Ref. 206.001) was bought, in other words, one of the first Lange watches after they had shaken off socialist state-directed economy.

Today, it still serves and delights his owner like on the first day with its incredible workmanship and a quartz-watch like precision (deviation 0 … +1 s/24h).

While this is an impressions video (just pictures, no voice over) there is a more comprehensive video about this watch on    • A Lange & Söhne 1815  . Since it’s the very first video that was produced for this channel, kindly apologize it’s obvious imperfection.

Keywords: A. Lange & Söhne, 1815, dress watch, top tier luxury watch, handcrafted watch