- File
- 010
- Type
- Auction Aftermath
- Filed
- Filed by
- no_reserve, Saleroom
- Stupidity Index
- 8.6 · Properly stupid
Lot 61: nineteen of twenty-five
Ref. 110.049, circa 2003. Number 19 of 25, made for a Paris retailer. Estimated as a Lange 1, and catalogued with the calibre of a larger watch.
An eighteen-carat white gold case, 38.5 millimetres across. Case number 149’944, with the edition number 19/25 engraved as well. The dial is blue mother-of-pearl and carries the outsize date and the power reserve. It sits on a leather strap with a white gold Lange pin buckle, and the case, dial, movement and buckle are all signed. Phillips catalogued it as the Lange 1 Limited Edition for Dubail Paris, reference 110.049, circa 2003: number nineteen of twenty-five, made for the Paris retailer. It was lot 61 in the house’s Geneva online sale of 4 September.
The Lange 1 made its debut in 1994 with calibre L901.0, according to Lange’s own history of its movements. When we filed the Lange 1 in April, that was the movement we described. Phillips agrees on a different page: lot 186 at its Geneva sale of 9 May, a yellow gold reference 101.002 from 1995, is catalogued with calibre L901.0 and fifty-three jewels.
Lot 61 is catalogued with calibre L095.1 and forty-two jewels. Lange’s press material gives L095.1, and forty-two jewels, to the Grand Lange 1, a watch forty-one millimetres across. The same material says the Grand Lange 1 has been in the collection since 2003 and was given its own movement in 2012. Lot 61 is 38.5 millimetres and circa 2003.
The calibre line on lot 61 reads, character for character, as the calibre line on lot 2 at Phillips in New York on 13 June. That was a Grande Lange 1 Limited Edition for Dubail Paris, reference 117.040, circa 2020, forty-one millimetres, numbered 23 of 25. The two catalogue entries also open with the same adjective, which is not one this publication is permitted to use.
The only document offered with lot 61 is an A. Lange & Söhne certificate dated 5 May 2026, confirming that the watch was produced. The catalogue states that it is not the original. The page carries no condition report. Lot 186 came with its original guarantee certificate, dated July 1995. The New York Dubail came with a guarantee booklet dated 21 December 2020. Lot 61 came with a certificate four months old.
Lot 61 was estimated at CHF35,000 to CHF70,000. Phillips published the result as CHF508,000. The house charges a buyer’s premium of twenty-seven per cent in Geneva on hammer prices up to CHF1,600,000, so the hammer was CHF400,000. That is a little under six times the high estimate. Lot 186 was estimated at CHF25,000 to CHF50,000 and published at CHF35,560, inside its range. In New York, the Grande Lange 1 for Dubail was estimated at $40,000 to $80,000 and published at $279,400.
What the sale records is two descriptions of one object. The estimate describes a Lange 1. The hammer describes number nineteen of twenty-five, in blue mother-of-pearl, made for a retailer in Paris. Between them sits a catalogue page whose calibre line describes a watch forty-one millimetres across. As of 14 September, that line is still on the page.