Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo is thrilled to welcome you to The Geneva Sessions, Fall 2025, online auction, running from 12:00 PM CET, Thursday, 4 September, to 2:00 PM CET, Friday, 12 September. The sale features more than 80 different high-end luxury wristwatches, covering everything from A. Lange & Söhne and F.P. Journe to Audemars Piguet and Patek Philippe, including an A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar.
– By Logan Baker
The Lange 1 is one of the defining wristwatches of the modern era.
Introduced in 1994 as part of the revival of A. Lange & Söhne, it re-established Glashütte as a center of fine watchmaking and gave Germany a design language that was entirely its own. Off-center dials, the oversized date, uncompromising finishing – what seemed radical at the time is now a classic. Yet despite the model’s importance and longevity, one of watchmaking’s most revered complications, the perpetual calendar, never appeared in the pure Lange 1 format. Lange built them into the Langematik, the Richard Lange, and even into extravagant combinations like the Lange 1 Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar, but for nearly three decades, a straightforward Lange 1 QP remained absent.
That changed in 2021. A. Lange & Söhne finally unveiled the Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar, a watch that felt both inevitable and long overdue. On the surface, it looked like a natural extension of the family, but getting there required years of technical problem-solving. The Lange 1 dial is a carefully balanced study in asymmetry; add too much information and the result could collapse into clutter. Perpetual calendars are notoriously demanding, with their need to display day, date, month, leap year, and often a moon-phase. Lange’s challenge was to introduce all of these elements without disturbing their icon’s visual identity.
The solution was clever. The big date remained the focal point, as it always has been. The power-reserve indicator at nine o’clock gave way to a retrograde day-of-the-week display. Around the edge of the dial, a rotating month ring provided the cleanest possible solution for an indication that usually requires a full sub-dial. At six o’clock, a small cut-out triangle points to the current month and doubles as the leap-year indicator. The moon-phase found a home inside the running seconds sub-dial at seven o’clock, paired with a day-night indicator that gradually shifts from bright blue to a starry sky. All together, the watch delivers an immense amount of information, yet it never feels busy. It looks like a Lange 1, only with more to say.
The movement behind the display, calibre L021.3, is based on the automatic L021.1 of the Lange 1 Daymatic. By starting with that foundation, Lange was able to build the perpetual calendar into the existing architecture without forcing compromises. The rotor features a heavy platinum weight along its outer edge for greater winding efficiency, and the calibre retains all the hallmarks of Lange finishing: untreated German silver plates, Glashütte ribbing, blued screws, gold chatons, and a hand-engraved balance cock. Flip the watch over, and it is as much a visual treat as the dial side, proof that Lange approaches engineering and decoration with equal intensity.
Collectors were offered two versions at launch: pink gold with a grey dial, and white gold with a solid pink-gold dial that reads unmistakably as salmon. The latter was limited to 150 pieces and quickly became the reference everyone wanted. Salmon dials have long carried a special cachet, their warmth balancing the cool sheen of white metal cases, and Lange had never produced one quite like this. The present watch, number 149 of 150, is an example of that rare run, offered in excellent condition with its full set of accessories.
The appeal of the Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar goes beyond looks. Every calendar indication jumps instantaneously at midnight, a small but meaningful flourish that shows the depth of the engineering. The moon-phase disc, accurate for over a century, acquires added meaning from the layered day-night disc behind it. And while the watch contains 621 components, the case remains wearable at just under 42mm in diameter and a little over 12mm thick. It feels substantial without being unwieldy, exactly the kind of balance a perpetual calendar should strike.
Why should collectors care? First, because this watch fills the one gap in the history of the Lange 1. For years, it was the model that never existed, the perpetual calendar that seemed obvious but somehow never came. Second, it demonstrates how Lange interprets complications in its own voice. Rather than forcing a Swiss-style calendar into the Lange 1, the brand re-imagined the complication to suit its own asymmetric language. And finally, this salmon-dial edition offers genuine rarity. With just 150 produced, it is one of the most limited Lange 1 variants ever made, and examples rarely reach the market.
The Lange 1 Perpetual Calendar is not a watch you forget on the wrist. Its heft and presence remind you of what it represents: the meeting of technical mastery and design purity, the extension of a collection that began in 1994, and a statement of how Lange continues to evolve.
You can view the complete Phillips Geneva Sessions, Fall 2025, Online Auction catalogue 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 ten years covering the watch industry from every angle. He joined Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo in early 2023 as Senior Editorial Manager, after previous roles at Hodinkee and WatchTime. Originally from Texas, he spent a decade in New York and now calls Geneva home.
Recommended Reading