The PHILLIPS Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVIII, takes place on May 24 and 25, 2024, at our West Kowloon headquarters. The auction includes more than 280 of the world's finest watches – and though we are loath to boast, we truly think it's one of the best catalogs we've ever put together. We'll be highlighting a number of the most interesting lots and stories featured in the sale right here, including the A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk 'Lumen' ref. 142.055 (lot 822) featured below.
– By Logan Baker
A. Lange & Söhne was officially reborn 30 years ago this year. On October 24, 1994, the reborn Saxon watchmaker presented its debut collection of four new wristwatches under the leadership of Walter Lange and Günter Blümlein.
The goal of the resurrected A. Lange & Söhne was to present a new generation of wristwatches created very much in the traditional form of Saxon high watchmaking. It was a strategy that found immediate success in the growing collectors’ market for luxury wristwatches, but it wasn’t without some criticism.
In a tremendously insightful February 1999 TimeZone interview between Mr. Blümlein and Peter Chong – who would later go on to create the Singapore-based watch site Deployant – the latter asks for a response toward general “comments/feedback that Lange movements are anachronistic.”
“It is our purpose to follow the path of watch-making tradition in Saxon ... Naturally this leads to sometimes ‘anachronistic’ solutions,” Blümlein responded. “And to be frank, I like anachronisms as long as they are as adorable as our movements. But anachronisms not necessarily exclude technological progress or innovation as A. Lange & Söhne has proofed since 1994.”
Blümlein tragically died less than three years after that interview was published, in October 2001, at the age of 58.
His influence, however, is still felt strongly throughout the halls of A. Lange & Söhne’s Glashütte headquarters. It’s visible in watches like the Lange 1 and the Datograph, watches that were released under his leadership of the brand, and even in the Zeitwerk, an unusual digital wristwatch released long after his death and that seems particularly far removed from any early collector criticisms around anachronisms.
The Zeitwerk was introduced 15 years ago, in 2009, exactly half-way between the A. Lange & Söhne’s 1994 rebirth and today. It’s still the most unconventional model in the brand’s catalog. And it’s still the only watch of its kind on the market – no other mechanical watch displays the time both digitally and horizontally in the same way.
And it all started with a sketch from Blümlein himself, completed in 2001, shortly before his unexpected death.
Production on the movement that would become the Zeitwerk began in 2004, the same year Anthony de Haas, Lange’s longtime Product Development Director, joined the company.
Blümlein’s original sketch (which contained a moon-phase) differs significantly from the Zeitwerk’s final form, but it would have never existed in any form without his original concept sketch.
De Haas and his team eventually drew design inspiration from the linear digital display found on the famous five-minute clock inside Dresden’s Semperoper house. The rest, as they say, is history.
Fifteen years after the Zeitwerk’s debut, the collection has grown to include 17 total references, including two separate generations featuring the original time only design, plus models featuring additional complications as simple as a date mechanism up to multiple chiming complications, including a decimal repeater, a minute repeater, and an hour striker.
The movements – which have so far all been manual – are separated between two different generations. All Zeitwerk models until 2019 were based off the first-generation Zeitwerk movemet platform, launched in 2009. The second-generation Zeitwerk movement generation made its debut in 2019 inside the first calendar-equipped model in the collection, the Zeitwerk Date. It was then extended to the standard time-only Zeitwerk models at the end of 2022. Any chiming Zeitwerk models still in the A. Lange & Söhne catalog are still based off the earlier movement platform.
The main difference between the two movement generations is the power reserve. The original 36-hour reserve was upgraded to 72 hours. A pusher allowing for the rapid forward adjustment of the jumping-hour display was also added to the Zeitwerk’s case profile near the four o'clock position.
The Zeitwerk has otherwise remained a remarkably consistent beast in terms of design. Only three dial types are publicly known (the standard galvanic-coated silver, the transparent Lumen series, and the exclusive hand-engraved Handwerkunst decoration), and only five different case metals have been identified (white gold, pink gold, yellow gold, platinum, and Lange’s proprietary Honeygold alloy).
The Zeitwerk, even without additional complications, is one of the more labor-intensive watches made by A. Lange & Söhne. That means it has never been produced in large numbers, even including the regular-production time-only models. Its overall complexity has meant the Zeitwerk has always been an expensive product at the top of Lange’s catalog. Being an expensive, mechanical digital watch also means the collection has a somewhat limited audience of collectors. These combined factors have translated to Lange releasing new Zeitwerk’s primary as limited-production references.
Only one Zeitwerk unique piece is known, the 18k white gold ref. 140.049 with a soft grey dial. It was auctioned off in 2011 at a charity gala dinner in Singapore, with all proceeds going toward the Kidz Horizon Appeal charity. It sold for approximately SGP $138,000 at the time.
Fifteen years young, the Zeitwerk is finally ready for its Phillips Fine Print retrospective.
2009: The First Zeitwerk
A. Lange & Söhne introduced the Zeitwerk in May 2009 in Berlin.
The release was an all-out blitz. Rather than release the debut model in a single metal to start with, Lange introduced the Zeitwerk and its caliber L043.1 with four case metal/dial color variants at once. The platinum example (Ref. 140.025) is the only one of the four debut Zeitwerks to be produced in a confirmed limited production number.
Ref. 140.021: 18k yellow gold, champagne dial, discontinued in 2013
Ref. 140.025: platinum, grey dial, 200-piece limited edition
Ref. 140.029: 18k white gold, black dial, discontinued in 2022
Ref. 140.032: 18k pink gold, silver dial, discontinued in 2022
The secret behind the Zeitwerk’s movement is its exclusive one-minute remontoir mechanism that drives both the jumping hour and minute discs. The Zeitwerk’s remontoir spring effectively measures and doles out the appropriate amount of energy to drive the once-per-minute jump of the digital timekeeping display discs
A gear train in a conventional watch movement would quickly lose its torque, and then its precision, if it had to expand the same amount of digital energy to move its digital discs once per minute. A. Lange & Sohne adapted the remointoir mechanism it had already developed and used successfully inside the previously released Lange 31, which featured a remarkable power reserve of up to one month, or 31 days.
The dials, regardless of color, incorporated a so-called zeitbrück, a German-silver “Time Bridge” that frames all the dial displays. Untreated German silver is used for the frame of the Zeitwerk dial on the yellow gold and pink gold models, while the white gold and platinum examples received rhodium plating.
The inaugural platinum release was a limited-edition of only 200 watches, while its three precious-metal options remained in production much longer. Yellow gold was eventually discontinued in 2013, followed by pink gold and white gold in 2022.
2010: The Lumen Landing
It didn't take long for A. Lange & Söhne to revisit the Zeitwerk. Almost exactly six months after the model was introduced, Lange followed up with the announcement of the Zeitwerk's first Lumen edition, the platinum-cased ref. 140.035. It was officially shown to the public for the first time, however, during the January 2010 edition of the SIHH trade show in Geneva.
To put it simply, all "Lumen" indicates at A. Lange & Söhne is the use of a semi-transparent dial developed by Lange that allows the luminous jumping numeral displays to be fully visible at all hours. It's cool. It's fun. Most importantly, it's an outside-the-box approach for one of the industry's biggest players. It's hard to imagine many other high-end brands doing something like this.
Small tweaks were added to the movement of the Zeitwerk Lumen, which utilized the caliber L043.3 rather than the standard L043.1.
2011: Let's Get Complicated
The first complicated Zeitwerk officially landed the following year, during SIHH 2011.
Unlike the previous Zeitwerk releases, the Striking Time had a larger case to allow for the hammers and gongs to be visible on the front-side of the dial.
The Striking Time is different from your standard chiming wristwatch. It's not a minute repeater but an hour striker, chiming a low note once per hour on the hour in addition to a high note every quarter-hour (every 15, 30, 45 minutes).
Two versions of the Zeitwerk Striking Time were introduced in 2011, including the platinum-cased ref. 145.025, limited to 100 examples, and the 18k white gold ref. 145.029 that entered regular production.
2012: Handwerkunst Is German For 'I Love You'
The Handwerkskunst series of watches is one of the most exclusive produced by A. Lange & Söhne. Similar to the Lumen series, the Handwerkskunst models are only available as limited editions. They feature a textured solid gold dial that is engraved by hand to leave a consistent grained finish.
A. Lange & Söhne introduced the first Zeitwerk Handwerkskunst in 2012, the platinum ref. 140.048, a limited-edition of just 30 pieces.
Interestingly, it also came with a novel mechanical update, utilizing the old-school Glashütte lever escapement rather than the conventional Swiss lever design. The Glashütte lever was completely forgotten until the Lange team contacted a retired former employee that helped them recover the technical design.
2014: Strike The Time (Again)
Launched at SIHH 2014, the third Zeitwerk Striking Time was identical to the previous 2011 examples but cased in 18k pink gold.
The new ref. 145.032 entered regular production and remains available to this day.
2015: Chime Again?
A. Lange & Söhne introduced the second chiming Zeitwerk in 2015, this time equipped with a minute-repeating mechanism rather than the previous hour striker.
The platinum Zeitwerk Minute Repeater ref. 147.025 entered serial production on its release and has only been offered in one other case/metal format, a blue-dial limited edition revealed in 2019.
The Zeitwerk Minute Repeater is massively more complex than the Striking Time. Despite the case measuring only a single millimeter thicker, the caliber L043.5 inside contains 243 more parts than its chiming predecessor.
A. Lange & Söhne also decided to make the Zeitwerk Minute Repeater different than most other available minute-repeating wristwatches, by having it chime the time in 10-minute intervals rather than quarter-hours, making it a decimal repeater.
2017: Three Strikes Law
The Zeitwerk Decimal Strike landed in 2017 and effectively combined the functionality of the two previous Zeitwerk models, introducing the caliber L043.7 that marks the passage of every 10 minutes with a low-note chime rather than every 15 minutes.
The ref. 143.050 was introduced in a case made from A. Lange & Söhne's proprietary Honeygold allow and featured a Handwerkskunst-like decoration on the so-called "Time Bridge" that surrounds the digital hour and minute displays, the chiming bridge, and on the hammers themselves.
The Zeitwerk Decimal Strike ref. 143.050 was a limited-edition release of only 100 pieces. It is so far the only example of the model produced to date.
2019: Finally, A Date
Five years ago, A. Lange & Söhne officially revealed the first model in the second generation of the Zeitwerk.
The Zeitwerk Date was introduced at SIHH 2019, the 10-year anniversary of the Zeitwerk family. Cased in 18k white gold, the ref. 148.038 featured a warm grey dial with a date ring running along the periphery of the face. An evolution of the traditional pointer date concept, the stencil-style date ring features the exact date in red.
The Zeitwerk Date has a larger case size of 44.2mm in order to accomodate the date wheel.
What makes the Zeitwerk Date a second-generation model, however, doesn't have anything to do with the watch's calendar complication, but instead the reworked movement, which includes an extended power reserve of 72 hours and an external four o'clock pusher mechanism that allows the hours to be quick-set.
2020: Don't Feel Blue
The 18k white gold Zeitwerk Minute Repeater ref. 147.028 is the most exclusive Zeitwerk series to date (alongside the Handwerkunst model from 2012), with a limited production of only 30 examples.
The ref. 147.028 was also the first Zeitwerk to feature a blue dial rather than one in silver, grey, or black.
2021: The Lumen Returns
On October 24, 2021, exactly 27 years since the company's rebirth, A. Lange & Söhne unveiled the first time-only second-generation Zeitwerk and the second-ever Zeitwerk Lumen.
Limited to 200 pieces worldwide, Lange chose to dress the new ref. 142.055 in Honeygold, its proprietary gold alloy, before going back and undressing the dial in the fashion of its exclusive Lumen series. These are three of the company's most exclusive attributes, all mixed together in a single watch, only missing the Handwerkskunst decoration.
The new, less-limited Lumen featured a second-generation Zeitwerk movement with a 72-hour power reserve and quickset hour pusher.
2022: A Soft Relaunch
The most recent Lange Zeitwerk comes in two different flavors – your choice of a platinum or 18k pink gold case – each equipped with the brand-new manual-wind caliber L043.6 that builds on the original Zeitwerk's dual-jumping hour and minute display and constant-force mechanism, but with an upgraded barrel design housing two mainsprings that enables an increased power reserve of up to 72 hours (a substantial improvement from the previous generation's insufficient 36 hours).
These sorts of developments don't come easily. The total number of components inside the Zeitwerk's caliber L043.6 is all the way up to 451 individual pieces, an increase of exactly 63 components from the architecture of the 2009 movement. However, it is worth mentioning that Lange was somehow able to actually shrink the thickness of the case ever so slightly from the Zeitwerk's original profile. How slight are we talking? Exactly 0.4mm.
The Zeitwerk's dial layout and design have, for the most part, remained the same between the generations. The position of the opposing jumping hour and minute apertures have not moved, and neither have the running seconds sub-dial that's located in the traditional six o'clock position or the sweeping power reserve indicator at the top of the dial. That big ol' German silver bridge that frames all of the time displays? It's called the "time bridge" – or the zeitbrücke, if your German is up to snuff – and it's right where it's supposed to be. Everything about the new Zeitwerk is familiar, but if you look closely around the dial, you'll find a few subtle visual tweaks and improvements.
The small seconds, for instance, appears to now be slightly larger in size, a decision presumably made to increase the display's overall visual impact and to improve its legibility. The increase in circumference of the sub-dial also encouraged Lange to move its famous "Made In Germany" signature away from the rounded underbelly of the time bridge and into the lower part of the seconds display. And then, another new addition comes in at the top of the dial: The final 12 hours of the power-reserve display are now highlighted in bright red for increased contrast and awareness of when the mainspring is almost out of juice.
The new Zeitwerk comes in a round three-part case with Lange's signature notched lugs and precise dimensions of 41.9mm × 12.2mm. At launch, it's available in two different variants. There's an example in a 950 platinum case with a rhodium-tinted silver dial, a black-rhodium time bridge, and a dark brown alligator strap (ref. 142.025), or you can opt for the Zeitwerk in an 18k pink gold case with a black dial, a time bridge made of untreated German silver, and a black alligator leather strap (ref. 142.031).
2024: Wait And See
Will we see a new Zeitwerk this year? It's completely possible.
A. Lange & Söhne introduced the Zeitwerk Date model for the Zeitwerk's 10-year anniversary, and the brand has never been shy about commemorating important dates in its rebirth. More importantly, 2024 is the thirtieth anniversary of A. Lange & Söhne's resurrection.
I wouldn't be surprised if some sort of entirely new collection was introduced to celebrate the occasion. That doesn't mean we won't see a new Zeitwerk this year, but it does indicate that Lange might choose to be selective in its 2024 introductions, choosing to iterate on a new Zeitwerk with a limited-edition color-specific run rather than introduce something totally brand new.
It's likely we'll find out either during Watches & Wonders in April, or on October 24, the exact date A. Lange & Söhne celebrates as its birthday.
You can view the complete catalog for the Phillips Watches Hong Kong Watch Auction: XVIII right here.
About Phillips In Association With Bacs & Russo
The team of specialists at PHILLIPS Watches is dedicated to an uncompromised approach to quality, transparency, and client service. Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo holds the world record for the most successful watch auction, with its Geneva Watch Auction: XIV having realized $74.5 million in 2021. Over the course of 2021 and 2022, the company sold 100% of the watches offered, a first in the industry, resulting in the highest annual total in history across all the auction houses at $227 million.
About Logan Baker
Logan has spent the past decade reporting on every aspect of the watch business. He joined Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo at the start of 2023 as the department's Senior Editorial Manager. He splits his time between New York and Geneva.
Recommended Reading
Why Every Collector Needs An A. Lange & Söhne
Early ‘MIG’ Dials And The Original A. Lange & Söhne Little Lange 1