A. Lange & Söhne. A very rare 18 carat gold hunter cased minute repeating instantaneous perpetual calendar split second chronograph keyless lever watch with phases of the moon and minute recorder

SIGNED A. LANGE & SÖHNE, GLASHÜTTE I/SA, NO. 62509, CIRCA 1909 SOLD IN 1928 TO A CLIENT IN CHEMNITZ.

细节
A. Lange & Söhne. A very rare 18 carat gold hunter cased minute repeating instantaneous perpetual calendar split second chronograph keyless lever watch with phases of the moon and minute recorder
Signed A. Lange & Söhne, Glashütte i/SA, No. 62509, circa 1909
sold in 1928 to a client in Chemnitz.
With 19 ligne three quarter plate jewelled nickel finished lever movement with convex entry pallet and concave exit pallet, bimetallic compensation balance, diamond endstone, gold escape wheel and gold pallet fork, repeating on two gongs, glazed dust cover, gold cuvette, the white enamel dial with Arabic numerals, decoratively pierced gold hands, four subsidiary dials indicating month combined with leap year indicator and 30 minutes recorder, day, date and phases of the moon combined with constant seconds, the heavy plain case with engraved initials to the front, repeating slide and two split seconds chronograph buttons in the band, case and dial signed, movement numbered, bow stamped by maker
60 mm. diam.

拍品专文

A similar watch is illustrated in Die Uhren von A. Lange & Söhne Glashütte Sachsen by Martin Huber, p. 144 - 146, pl. 123 - 127.

Triple complicated watches by A. Lange & Söhne can be divided into two types: one, having a simplified version of the split chronograph mechanism, operated by one button only and the new type, a full split second chronograph operated by two buttons.
The movement of this watch, being a two button chronograph, was supplied by Audemars Piguet in 1909 and it appears that this watch is one of only fourteen finished and cased by Lange.

Ferdinand Adolph Lange was born in Dresden in 1815 and had his early training there. After having worked in Paris during four years with the renowned chronometer maker Winnerl, one of Breguet's famous students, he had the wish to establish a watch center in his native country.
With the financial help of the Saxon government, Lange started his own manufacture in December 1845 with his friend Adolf Schneider and fifteen apprentices. In 1868, he founded 'A. Lange & Söhne' in association with his sons Richard and Friedrich Emil.
Lange possessed, beside a thorough theory of his particular calling, an extended range of knowledge in different directions. His eminent talents did not remain unnoticed, and he was very early elected mayor in his little town. Hif life was one of activity and he introduced many essential innovations in the manufacturing of watches and chronometry. The horological school at Glashütte, though opened only two years after his dead, was a natural sequence of his thirty years' endeavour to resuscitate watch making in Germany. His shop had been a training school from the first.
Lange watches are renowned for their variety of rare technical constructions and quality and offer everything from an early pinlever-watch handmade by A. Lange up to tourbillons and highly complicated astronomical repeating watches.

We are indebted to Mr. Reinhard Meis, Lange Uhren GmbH, Schaffhausen, for his research and advice on this watch and the company A. Lange & Söhne. Reinhard Meis latest book A. Lange & Söhne, eine Uhrmacher-Dynastie aus Dresden with over 700 illustrations will be published by Callwey in autumn 1997.