The First Datograph Perpetual – A. Lange & Sohne
Thursday, July 29, 2010 19:232010 witnessed the auction sale of a “First” watch – the Datograph Perpetual created by A. Lange & Sohne. This was the first perpetual calendar wrist watch with some complications ever made by the great watch maker. It combined a perpetual calendar with a fly back indicator and jumping minute timer to provide precision time calculations. The sub-dials alone on this time piece are a great feat of engineering – there are dials within sub-dials. It was lot number 218 at the Bonham sale and went for about $ 70K US. But you need not pay that much for an A. Lange & Sohne replica watch. And the Datograph Perpetual has been replicated – look for the RE-US “A. Lange & Sohne Datograph Perpetual 22″. This time piece is astonishing not only for its verisimilitude but the fact that somebody else even attempted so grand a complication pairing as this! First of all, it would be almost impossible for even the best watch copier to duplicate the paired sub-dials on sub-dials at this level of cost and craftsmanship. Better that they just stuck with the more basic single sub-dials in three places on the main dial. However, the moonphase indicator on the duplicate does offer more complexity than the original! The month, date and day functions however are very close in function and form. The inner timer wheel just under the bezel does not have the fascinating complexity of the real one, but it still offers satisfactory performance. Otherwise the Roman numeral hour markings, trade names and other markings are very close to the standard set by the original. The overall appearance is very close to the real thing, though it is not known if it used a “SAX-O-MAT” movement in a rear skeleton view. Still, this is truly an original A. Lange & Sohne fake watch worth having.
