A Love Letter to Tourbillon Pour le Mérite, Piece Unique
I never wrote a dedicated page for a watch I had the pleasure to pass to another collector. Sure, a few deserved it—the Little Lange 1 (Ref. 111.028), the Double Split Japan Edition, the Lange 1 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst, and a handful of others—but I never got around to it. This watch, however, is different. Out of pure excitement and joy I want to record how it found me and what it means, and perhaps leave a page where every Lange enthusiast can scrutinise this once‑in‑a‑lifetime piece. But above all, I want to thank to the seller and the buyer for entrusting me – just a guy in this sea of great, great dealers and auction houses, and of course my partners The 1916 Company, on facilitating a deal on such an important piece of history, a piece of art.
Your trust means the world to me, thank you.
Why a love letter, you might ask. This watch captures the moment a teenage dream became real, the friendships forged through watches, and the privilege of guiding it from one caring wrist to another. Some pieces deserve feelings first, specs second.
Hence, this is going to be a personal story rather than hard facts on the watch. Handling this watch brought back the same excitement I felt over a decade ago, and I want to share this with you. I hope you enjoy it.
I remember very well when I held my first A. Lange & Söhne watch. Shaking, without belief that after all the time since my teenage years I finally had one in my hands, on my wrist. A complete awe of the heft, the workmanship, all the details… I took so many photos of that Lange 1 Darth, just tweaking my wrist to that angle to this angle to catch the contrast, a minor detail I enjoy…
Then straight after university I joined A. Lange & Söhne. One part of my job was to accompany friends, clients and collectors during manufacturé tours. In that old salon at the Stammhaus I had the pleasure to handle hundreds of references, from the very first days of the brand to the pieces that is almost unseen by public. Every weekday started with the 07:20 S1 out of Dresden Hauptbahnhof, the train rattling past fields and lovely villages while I kept asking myself, Can this really be my job? Am I really going to Glashütte, to A. Lange & Söhne manufacture as a daily commute?
Tourbillon Pour le Mérite reference 701.008, piece unique. Wellendorff Bracelet.
But then, there are some pieces that you cannot see even at the Stammhaus of A. Lange & Söhne.
It was late spring and already well above 30 °C in the valley. I wasn’t on the visitor rota, so I was wearing shorts and an ancient sweatshirt, minding my own business at the desk. Then a dear colleague popped her head in:
Alp, can you please come to the salon. One of our finest collectors want to meet you.
Slightly embarrassed of my outfit, she asked me to come nonetheless, I went anyway.
Oh, there you are, Mr Langepedia—what a pleasure! he greeted me. The pleasure, in fact, was all mine. I knew him by nickname—legendary to anyone who lurked on the Lange forums in the 2000s.
We chatted, and then he said, almost off‑hand, Alp, I brought something special for you.
He pulled up his sleeve and at the sight of the crown and the power reserve, I knew what was coming. He handed me his piece unique 36 mm platinum Tourbillon Pour le Mérite with a black dial. The trembling, just like that first day, came back with a vengeance. My hands buzzing like a Nissan engine at 150,000 km without an oil change. I tried to photograph it, but my fingers were useless; I had to set the watch down and breathe. I spent another 15 minutes with the watch. Asked a colleague to take photos for me instead. I simply could not do it. A joy I would never forget and an excitement I would ever chase.
Diamond shaped indexes catching the light is poetic.
Fast‑forward a few years. At a small watch gathering a gentleman appeared, introduced by a mutual dear friend. We realised we had already exchanged messages on Instagram over the years—and he was the owner of that very Tourbillon Pour le Mérite sold in 2014!
Alas, he hadn’t brought it, and I was dying to see it.
From then on, I occasionally—okay, persistently—asked whether I might see it, and whether he would ever sell. I knew I could never afford it myself, but I also knew the exact collection where it belonged. In May, after one of my polite nags, his reply made my hands tremble again: Maybe I will consider…
I already had the address in mind, and it proved the perfect fit. We agreed on the price quickly, but then, he said one more thing: Do you want the bracelet as well? Within two weeks the watch lay before me—one of the apex creations of A. Lange & Söhne, personally linked to both Blümlein and Lange. Topped off with an added white‑gold Wellendorff bracelet.
Upon seeing it, I realized, first love has no statute of limitations.
Three-armed tourbillon cage with black polished bridge.
What was the story behind these special dials? The salmon‑dial example sold by Sotheby’s in 2011, or the 36 mm platinum piece with black dial and black sub‑dials, sold by Dr Crott in 2012? I later discovered that all were created with the approval of Günter Blümlein for the board of VDO Mannesmann, owner of LMH (Les Manufactures Horlogères, which held A. Lange & Söhne, IWC and JLC until Richemont acquired it in early 2000).
In A. Lange & Söhne’s sphere there are many milestone pieces and subsequent special references within these collections. Lange 1, Datograph, Zeitwerk… Though I would argue that in terms of historic significance to the watchmaking world overall as well as its impact on the brand’s roadmap and further development, none holds a place like the Tourbillon Pour le Mérite. Offered alongside a groundbreaking design, that is the Lange 1, a rather straightforward and full of character Arkade and Saxonia, it was the signal of what the manufacture would become and what it was going to be about. One recent brand you can draw parallels to this strategy is surely the recent re-launch of Urban Jürgensen…
You can read all about this gem of a collection at The Collector’s Guide to Tourbillon Pour le Mérite, but I just want to give a quick taste. It is a watch that has not only started the modern A. Lange & Söhne dynasty, but it is also the first wristwatch to combine a fusée and chain with a tourbillon mechanism. It is a watch that has the name Dominique Renaud, Giulio Papi, Andreas Strehler, and Grönefeld Brothers on it. Yes, the movement was developed in partnership with that talent manufacture of the mid-90s, and most were assembled there.
Günter Blümlein enjoyed the platinum case, while Walter Lange’s daily has been 1/150 in yellow gold.
Now this number 101/150 as piece unique, reference 701.008, goes to a very dear friend. My consolation is that I’ll get to see it from time to time.
To everyone reading this, a thank you for your trust and support. This would not happen without you.
To the seller and the buyer, it went from a loving home to another great pair of hands.
A huge congrats to both of you.
Further Reading
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