Lange 1A Gold, AP Mercedes 500K Skeleton, Glashütte Panamatic Lunar, Patek 5180 & Breguet Mini Repeater

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of What’s on My Desk. I got an exciting one for you today. I have watches that wouldn’t fit the bill of hype watches, but in my mind they’re hyper than some of the hypest hype watches out there. Say that fast five times. And what did I bring? I brought an extremely rare watch from Lange & Söhne. I brought its brother from the same place, Glashütte Original, from the same village that Lange is made in. We all know that Breguet is responsible for pretty much everything under the sun that was invented in watchmaking. And I’ll show you why this mini repeater is extremely important in that lineup. I brought an AP which I would prefer over a Royal Oak, which is rarer than most Royal Oaks and something you probably have never seen. And seemingly a Patek that’s not a big deal, but that represents so much for Patek Philippe. So stay tuned to find out.

A. LANGE & SÖHNE LANGE 1A GOLD

I’m going to pick this up with Lange & Söhne. In my last episode, I showed the very first Lange 1. Well, this one is not too far off. This is the 112.021, the Lange 1A Gold. Now, most collectors will know that the Lange 1 is the watch that brought Lange & Söhne back to life in 1994. But very, very, very few people know about this particular version.

To understand the watch, you first have to understand the brand’s Phoenix story. It was founded in 1845, wiped off the map after World War II and reborn in 1994. They launched with just four watches: the Lange 1, the Tourbillon Pour le Mérite, the Saxonia and the Arkade. Out of those four, the Lange 1 quickly became the face of the modern brand and it still is today. The Lange 1 is the quintessential Lange to me. It’s one of the most iconic watches out there. It fits the top list, but in 1998, Lange was ready to flex. We talked about flex earlier. They opened up a new manufacture building in Glashütte and released this.

This is the Lange 1A, reference 112.021, released in 1998 and limited to just 100 pieces, and this one is the most unusual Lange 1 ever made. Why? The A in Lange 1A stands for Aurum, the Latin word for gold, and the concept defines the entire watch. The dial, solid yellow gold, finished with a beautiful gear-shaped pattern radiating from the time display. Even the date discs were printed in matching gold tone on the watch, giving the entire watch the rich, almost monochromatic gold look, if you will. But the gold theme goes even deeper. Inside is the caliber L901.1, I believe the same used in the original Lange 1, with twin barrels and a 72-hour power reserve. And because the version features the open sapphire caseback, unlike the original Lange 1 which had a closed caseback, you can actually see the finishing that Lange is famous for, including the engraved balance cock in a traditional three-quarter plate.

But in this watch, Lange went even further. Even parts of the escapement, including the lever and the escape wheel, were made from solid gold, which is extremely unusual since these high-friction parts are normally steel. It’s very difficult to do that out of gold and make sure that they don’t wear out quickly. And historically, this watch was important for another reason. Believe it or not, it was the first limited edition Lange 1 ever produced. It was created to celebrate the opening of the new manufacture in Glashütte as the brand was expanding after its rebirth. So now technically this is not part of Lange’s Handwerkskunst line, which directly translates to craftsmanship, introduced later in 2011, but in many ways it follows kind of the same philosophy. It represents Lange’s most artistic watches. These pieces showcase traditional decorative techniques like hand engraving, tremblage finishing, elaborate dial work that go far and beyond normal production. And the Lange 1A really feels like an early preview of that idea. I’m going to go as far as to say this is what inspired the Handwerkskunst collection later in 2011. And as I said earlier, many collectors see this watch as the predecessor to the craftsman editions that we have today. This is a watch that came from the very early years of Lange’s modern revival but already showed the level of craftsmanship the brand would eventually become famous for, and they only made a hundred of these, and today it probably stands as one of the most historically significant early Lange 1 references.

AUDEMARS PIGUET MERCEDES-BENZ 500K ROADSTER SKELETON

I’m going to move on to something I feel is one of the most special unknown watches. You guys know I’m biased. Audemars Piguet is my favorite brand. And while most will think of a Royal Oak when it comes to Audemars Piguet, and some rare Royal Oaks, which are all kind of rare and hard to get right now, to me this watch is much rarer and I think that makes it a lot more special because of that. I’m here to talk about the Mercedes-Benz 500K Roadster Platinum watch. It’s a reference 14710 BT.

Look, everybody wants to talk about Royal Oaks, but in the early ’90s, Audemars Piguet was quietly making pieces such as this. The watch you’re looking at is not just a skeleton watch. At a glance, oh, it’s a nice skeleton. Audemars Piguet is known for nice skeletons. No, the entire movement here is a canvas for a piece of automotive art. If you look closely at the bridges, you’ll see a hand-engraved Mercedes-Benz 500K Roadster carved directly into the open-work movement. Every detail is in there: sweeping fenders, the wire wheels, the long hood, the radiator grill. The engraver turned the architecture of the movement into a miniature sculpture, if you will.

Now, the car choice here is also not random. The Mercedes-Benz 500K. You guys know I’m a big racing fan. I love Formula 1 and Mercedes is my team, which by the way is doing phenomenal at the start of the season. Go Kimi, go George. But anyway, the 500K is one of the most prestigious automobiles from the pre-war era. It was built between 1934 and 1936. It was powered by a supercharged straight-8 engine. The K actually stands for Kompressor with a K. Back in the 1930s, this was the ultimate status symbol. If you had one of these cars, you were somebody. So what Audemars Piguet did in the early ’90s, they took that icon and immortalized it inside one of their skeleton watches.

The case on this watch is platinum, which makes it very rare, by the way. You mostly see these in yellow gold. It’s about 34 mm, which today sounds small. Although smaller is becoming the thing right now, but in the ’90s, this was perfectly normal for a high-end dress watch. It’s thin, it’s elegant, it slides perfectly under a shirt cuff. I wore this watch. I know. Inside is the caliber 2120. Don’t take that lightly. It’s one of the most important ultra-thin automatic movements ever made. The architecture actually traces back to the legendary caliber 920. The same base movement used historically for AP, Patek, Vacheron and Piaget. And because the artwork takes center stage on this watch, there’s no AP logo on the dial itself. Instead, the Audemars Piguet signature is on the underside of the sapphire crystal. So when you look at it, the logo kind of floats above the movement, if you will.

This watch wasn’t a one-off experiment. Audemars Piguet actually did a small group of skeleton watches like this in the late ’80s and ’90s built around vintage automobiles. AP never really pushed them publicly either, by the way. The full story behind these pieces is still a bit of a mystery. But over the years, collectors and dealers have pieced together a few of the other versions that exist. We had one here early on. It sold fairly quickly. Ferrari racing cars engraved onto the movement with tributes to cars like the Ferrari 315 S from Le Mans. There are also versions featuring Rolls-Royce Phantom 2 and Mercedes-Benz pieces in yellow gold on the reference 1467. You’ll even come across watches from the same era that collectors associate with Bugatti themes. Production on these was never officially published, but most estimates suggest they were made in very small quantities, like a few dozen pieces depending on the model and the metal. Platinum being the rarest. Personally, I think platinum is the holy grail of this entire lineup due to the fact that you have the striking gold movement sitting against the platinum case. Just gorgeous.

And this watch also represents a very different moment in Audemars Piguet’s history. Today, the brand is dominated by the Royal Oak. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, AP was still deeply focused on traditional complications, ultra-thin movements and incredible hand-finished skeleton work like this. You see a lot of the same skeleton work, decorated rotors and things of that nature in the back of some of the earlier pieces from the ’90s. Pieces like this were often made for special collectors, distributors perhaps in specific markets, which is why you almost never see them. So, I have a question for you guys. If you had a choice between this, a rare hand-engraved AP skeleton with a legendary movement, or a modern Royal Oak, which are you taking? Please comment below.

GLASHÜTTE ORIGINAL PANAMATIC LUNAR 180TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

I’m going to talk about the other Lange, as a lot of people like to refer to it. But make no mistake, this is not the other Lange. They just happen to be from the same place as Lange & Söhne, Glashütte in Germany. And this watch is a total flex of German engineering. You heard me say on record that I feel that German watchmaking surpasses that of Swiss. And people like, “Oh, what do you mean? Lange isn’t better than Patek and this that and the other.” Look, there are names and there’s quality. But we’re not going to get into that argument. You guys feel free to comment that below.

This is the Glashütte Original Panamatic Lunar Anniversary Edition. They made 180 of these pieces. While most people think of Switzerland for watchmaking, Germany has the one town that is just as important, and that is Glashütte. The story starts in 1845 again with Lange, when Ferdinand Adolph Lange moved to a small mining town to build a watch industry from scratch. Now after World War II, the local shops were merged into a state-run company called GUB. But when the wall fell and Germany reunited in the ’90s, they were reborn as Glashütte Original, carrying the soul of Saxon watchmaking into the modern era. Today, these guys are a true manufacture. They make almost everything in house, including their own dials, which is pretty rare in this industry. Most manufacturers will go out and have dials made elsewhere or buy companies that make dials. In the German hierarchy, collectors put Lange & Söhne at the top with Glashütte Original right on their heels.

And one of their signature watches is the Panamatic Lunar, introduced in the early 2000s. It’s designed around the golden ratio. Much like Lange, look at a Glashütte and a Lange from afar and you see a lot of similarities because they came from the same DNA. But this specific watch is the 180th anniversary edition. It was created to celebrate 180 years of the town’s history and it brings some massive firsts to the table. This is the first time that the brand used an aventurine dial, and it’s actually an aventurine glass. It’s a material filled with copper pieces to basically mimic the starfield sky. It’s also paired with a mother-of-pearl moon and housed, for the first time in this line, in solid 950 platinum.

But the real story is inside. This debuts the new caliber 92-14. It replaced a 20-year-old movement and doubled the specs. Power reserve jumped from 42 hours to a massive 100 hours, and it’s now fitted with a silicon balance spring for antimagnetic resistance, something that Ulysse Nardin brought us with the Freak if you remember my last episode. You flip this thing over and it’s a masterclass in Saxon finishing. Again, the usual three-quarter plate, Glashütte ribbing and a hand-engraved balance bridge. Glashütte Original in this particular watch is the perfect bridge between 180 years of history and the next generation of German watchmaking.

PATEK PHILIPPE 5180-1R

Now, let’s talk about the Patek. In the beginning of this video, I said this Patek is extremely important, and I’ll tell you why. And it’s not an Aquanaut. It’s not a Nautilus, but yet I deem this watch to be one of the most important watches. What I’m talking about is skeletonization taken to the extreme. This is the reference 5180-1R, the R standing for rose gold bracelet. Now, Patek Philippe’s watchmakers, when they were making this watch, removed nearly every piece of metal they possibly could without compromising the movement structure. There’s no traditional dial here. The movement itself becomes the dial. Even the hour markers aren’t applied components. They’re actually the 12 spokes of the movement that hold the ring, which is what structurally connects the movement to the case.

But skeletonizing the movement is only half the story, because once the architecture is hollowed out, the watch is handed to a master engraver, what Patek Philippe calls their rare handcraft treatment. 130 hours, nearly 3 weeks’ worth of work. An artisan uses a tiny steel engraving tool called the burin to carve traditional arabesque patterns in every remaining bridge and plate. Every single line is cut by hand because each stroke of the engraver’s tool is unique. No two movements are ever really identical under a loupe. You can literally put the two of them together and look under the loupe and you’ll see they look different, or a little bit different. Look, this is a deliberate presentation of a craft that many consider a dying art today.

Now, while the rose gold version was introduced in 2017, the movement inside traces back to one of the most important moments in modern watchmaking history. It was released to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the caliber 240, a movement that first debuted in 1977 during the height of the quartz crisis. At a time when the entire industry was abandoning mechanical watchmaking in favor of battery-powered quartz watches, Patek Philippe chose the opposite direction. Instead of simplifying, they engineered one of the thinnest automatic movements ever made. The secret was the recessed micro rotor that you see in the back, which is built directly into the movement rather than sitting on top, which is what you usually see with a rotor. This design keeps the entire watch incredibly slim. Even with automatic winding, the case measures just 6.7 mm thick.

And when you look closely, there are small details hidden throughout the movement. The mainspring barrel is skeletonized into the shape of a Calatrava Cross, Patek Philippe’s emblem. And if you wind the watch, you can actually see the spring tightening inside the shape. Because the bridges are so heavily engraved, the Patek Philippe seal had to be relocated to the micro rotor itself. And the hands are made from black and white gold so they don’t visually disappear against the rose gold movement beneath them. Most high-end watches impress people with what they do. For me, the 5180 impresses people with how it’s made. And it’s pieces like this that represent something arguably more important. It represents the preservation of traditional craftsmanship at its highest level.

BREGUET 3637BA MINUTE REPEATER

I never say I saved the best for last, but I will say I saved the godfather of all watchmaking for last. I’m here to talk to you about this classic minute repeater in yellow gold. Now, Abraham-Louis Breguet didn’t just make watches as far as I’m concerned. He invented the whole industry. He gave us the tourbillon, the overcoil and the iconic hollowed flip hands, among many, many other things. But his most musical invention: the gong spring. Look, before Breguet, repeating watches actually used tiny little bells inside the case to tell the time. And in 1783, he replaced those bells with a coiled steel gong that wrapped around the movement. This single invention allowed watchmakers to make minute repeaters slimmer, much clearer sounding, and it’s still the system used in almost every single minute repeater today, all those years later. And it’s that history that this watch exactly represents.

Now, this is a reference 3637BA. It looks like a masterpiece from the 1700s if you look at the watch, but it was actually born in the ’90s during what collectors now call the neo-vintage era, when traditional mechanical complications started making a serious comeback after the quartz crisis. And it was also the time when Breguet was proving to the world that mechanical art could never be replaced by a battery. This entire watch is a tribute to the design language Breguet created over two centuries ago. You have the signature coin-edge case, the blued hands, the Roman numerals and the guilloché dial cut on traditional rose engines. What’s interesting is that the dial actually combines multiple gear-shape patterns, including guilloché in the center and the basket-weave pattern on the small seconds.

Inside, a manually wound caliber 5627 built on the legendary Lemania 399 architecture with about 340 components, and also has a pretty impressive power reserve of about 40 hours. Now the complication itself is the star of the show. You slide the repeater and the two hammer-strike coil gongs chime the hours, quarters and minutes. Every repeater has to be tuned by hand, so watchmakers are essentially adjusting it like a musical instrument. You would see people adjust a piano. One detail most people miss: on the sub-dial at 3:00, it isn’t a second time zone. It’s actually a 24-hour day/night indicator, which helps the repeater distinguish whether it’s noon or midnight when it chimes.

Here’s another thing that’s interesting. Because the repeater slide opens a channel into the case, watches like this usually have essentially zero water resistance. High complications like this were never meant for daily abuse. They’re mechanical instruments. This thing measures about 37 mm. It’s very understated, but historically this thing lives in the lineage of one of the most important watchmakers that ever lived. Abraham-Louis Breguet didn’t just design watches. He invented the foundations of modern watchmaking. And pieces like this, to me, they’re a reminder that 200 years later, we’re still building on his ideas.

Guys, thank you so much for tuning in. I appreciate you. As always, I ask you to like, comment, share, subscribe, and I will see you on the next one.