A. Lange & Söhne
Encyclopedia
A. Lange & Söhne is a trademark of German
watch
making company Lange Uhren GmbH ("Lange"), a subsidiary of Richemont SA. Lange pocket and wrist watches are among the finest in the world, competing with watches produced by Swiss
firms such as Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin
.
, near Dresden
, in the eastern state
of Saxony
. Under Ferdinand, and then, following his death, his sons Emil and Richard, Lange produced quality pocket watches, the company's very best products generally being given the "1A" designation. Under subsequent generations of the Lange family the company continued to produce pocket watches and, like many German watch makers, produced special over-sized wrist watches for use by German airmen in World War II.
In 1948, the post-war
Soviet
administration expropriated the company's property, and the Lange brand ceased to exist. However, in 1990, following the collapse of the East German government, the founder's great-grandson, Walter Lange, together with watch industry executive Günter Blümlein, restored the company with the assistance of several Swiss watch manufacturers, including IWC and Jaeger Le Coultre. The refounded Lange, again operating from Glashütte, presented its first range of wrist watches in 1994. Today, A. Lange & Söhne (litt. A. Lange & Sons) wrist watches are sold globally and Lange, like IWC, is a member of the Richemont
group.
Lange watches tend to have a highly distinctive appearance. For example, the "Lange 1" model features an asymmetric layout with no overlap among its key indicators: a dial displaying the hours and minutes, a smaller subsidiary dial displaying seconds, an oversized double window date display, and a power reserve indicator. Lange's watches are often described as more "austere" or "Teutonic" in appearance than watches produced by comparable Swiss firms.
In addition to time-only watches, both manually-wound and automatic, Lange is known for its complicated watches, including simple and split-seconds chronographs, annual and perpetual calendars, world-timers and tourbillons
.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
watch
Watch
A watch is a small timepiece, typically worn either on the wrist or attached on a chain and carried in a pocket, with wristwatches being the most common type of watch used today. They evolved in the 17th century from spring powered clocks, which appeared in the 15th century. The first watches were...
making company Lange Uhren GmbH ("Lange"), a subsidiary of Richemont SA. Lange pocket and wrist watches are among the finest in the world, competing with watches produced by Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
firms such as Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin
Vacheron Constantin
Vacheron Constantin is a Swiss manufacture of prestige watches and a brand of the Richemont group. Considered by watch enthusiasts to be one of the finest traditional watch makers in the world along with Patek Philippe & Co., Jaeger-LeCoultre and Audemars Piguet.It employs around 400 people...
.
History
Lange was founded in 1845 by Ferdinand Adolph Lange in the town of GlashütteGlashütte
Glashütte is a town in Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge, Free State of Saxony, Germany, which was the birthplace of the German watchmaking industry. The city has a population of about 4,700. Historically it was first mentioned in a document around 1445...
, near Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, in the eastern state
States of Germany
Germany is made up of sixteen which are partly sovereign constituent states of the Federal Republic of Germany. Land literally translates as "country", and constitutionally speaking, they are constituent countries...
of Saxony
Saxony
The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....
. Under Ferdinand, and then, following his death, his sons Emil and Richard, Lange produced quality pocket watches, the company's very best products generally being given the "1A" designation. Under subsequent generations of the Lange family the company continued to produce pocket watches and, like many German watch makers, produced special over-sized wrist watches for use by German airmen in World War II.
In 1948, the post-war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
administration expropriated the company's property, and the Lange brand ceased to exist. However, in 1990, following the collapse of the East German government, the founder's great-grandson, Walter Lange, together with watch industry executive Günter Blümlein, restored the company with the assistance of several Swiss watch manufacturers, including IWC and Jaeger Le Coultre. The refounded Lange, again operating from Glashütte, presented its first range of wrist watches in 1994. Today, A. Lange & Söhne (litt. A. Lange & Sons) wrist watches are sold globally and Lange, like IWC, is a member of the Richemont
Richemont
Compagnie Financière Richemont S.A. is a Swiss luxury goods holding company founded in 1988 by the South African businessman Johann Rupert. Richemont categorizes its businesses into four areas: jewellery, watch making, writing instruments and other, which encompasses clothing and firearms. The...
group.
Collections
All Lange watches contain mechanical rather than quartz movements and, with the exception of a very few special edition watches, Lange watch cases are made of gold or platinum. Lange movements are developed, produced, and assembled by Lange itself. Lange's movement design and decoration is distinctively Glashütte in appearance, eschewing typically Swiss features, such as multiple bridges and cocks, or Geneva wave decoration, in favor of three-quarter plates, "Glashütte stripes", hand-engraved balance cocks and screwed gold chatons. Lange movements are made from a metal known as "German silver", an alloy of copper and nickel, as opposed to the plated brass typically used for Swiss movements, giving Lange movements an unusual color and sheen.Lange watches tend to have a highly distinctive appearance. For example, the "Lange 1" model features an asymmetric layout with no overlap among its key indicators: a dial displaying the hours and minutes, a smaller subsidiary dial displaying seconds, an oversized double window date display, and a power reserve indicator. Lange's watches are often described as more "austere" or "Teutonic" in appearance than watches produced by comparable Swiss firms.
In addition to time-only watches, both manually-wound and automatic, Lange is known for its complicated watches, including simple and split-seconds chronographs, annual and perpetual calendars, world-timers and tourbillons
Tourbillon
In horology, a tourbillon is an addition to the mechanics of a watch escapement. Developed around 1795 by the French-Swiss watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet from an earlier idea by the English chronometer maker John Arnold a tourbillon aims to counter the effects of gravity by mounting the...
.
Pronunciation and Spelling
- A. Lange & Söhne is approximately pronounced [ah LANG-eh unt ZURN-neh]. Where the UmlautUmlaut (diacritic)The diaeresis and the umlaut are diacritics that consist of two dots placed over a letter, most commonly a vowel. When that letter is an i or a j, the diacritic replaces the tittle: ï....
"ö" is not available, it is rendered as a digraphDigraph (orthography)A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used to write one phoneme or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined...
by German convention ("Soehne"), but often as "Sohne" internationally (even though that would imply a different pronunciation in German).