111st Auction
2024/11/16
Lot 10
A. Lange & Söhne
A very fine, extremely rare Glashuette pocket watch with chronograph in an American "Joseph Ruff" case, in manufactured in quality 1A and sold in 1889 for 800 marks
Sold
In the early 1870s R. Lange started designing a new chronograph which had the mechanism above the train, so that the mechanism could be attached to a "normal" watch movement. The upper seconds bearing received a new bridge and acted as the bearing for the clutch lever. A central chrono wheel with an upper steel bridge was fed through the minute wheel and all levers and springs were highly ground and bevelled. The mechanism was operated by a pusher in the crown, with the sequence being start, stop and reset. The most basic version only had one chronograph hand, chronographs with minute counters were much more complicated.
Lit.: Detailed description and illustration in Reinhard Meis "A. Lange & Söhne" Callwey Verlag, page 242
Case maker J(oseph) Ruff was a retailer of A. Lange & Söhne watches in Chicago.