On 6 October 2018, Henry’s auction house will auction off the 165 Years anniversary collection, which was issued in honour of Ferdinand Adolph Lange in 2010. Only 21 of these sets, which consist of three complications and have honey-gold casings, are in existence.
In 2010, A. Lange & Söhne honoured the founder of the Saxon precision watchmaking workshop with three extraordinary complications. As a homage to the legacy of Ferdinand A. Lange, the TOURBOGRAPH “Pour le Mérite”, LANGE 1 TOURBILLON and 1815 MOON PHASE models were issued with casings made from HONEYGOLD®, a blend used exclusively at Lange. On Saturday, 6 October 2018, Henry’s auction house in Germany will auction off the set, which is also shown on the cover of the catalogue.
The TOURBOGRAPH “Pour le Mérite” model has a minute tourbillon, a fusée-and-chain drive and a split-second chronograph. Introduced in 2005, there were only 50 of this complication made with honey-gold casings. The rare material was used to manufacture 150 LANGE 1 TOURBILLON timepieces, all equipped with the patented stop-seconds mechanism. This allows the balance inside the rotating tourbillon cage to be halted directly without delay. On the tourbillon’s dial side is a highly polished cock made from the same material and precisely adjusted to the dial. Finally, the 1815 MOON PHASE, from a limited edition of only 265 timepieces in honey gold, has an ultraprecise moon-phase display, which only needs to be corrected by a day after 1,058 years. This model’s hand-engraved balance cock is also made from honey gold.
A guilloche dial made of solid gold and a sunray finish inspired by historical models on the three-quarter plate of the 1815 MOON PHASE and the crown-wheel cock on the LANGE 1 TOURBILLON are examples of A. Lange & Söhne’s huge tradition of craftsmanship.
On only 21 occasions have all three models gone on sale as a set. The trio on offer at Henry’s is limited-edition number 5. The auction house values the set at € 400,000 to € 700,000.
