722.050 A. Lange & Söhne Lange 1 Tourbillon

If I were Günter Blümlein and someone suggested that they were going to revise the Lange 1 by adding a tourbillon, I'd tell them to zieh leine and stop being obtuse. You can't improve upon the Lange 1, surely? Well, if time has taught us anything, it's to trust the slow and steady improvisations that Lange have made. This is the ref. 722.050, a 2010 revival of the original 2000 model, the first complicated Lange 1, in Honey Gold and made in 165 examples. 

While often a footnote, the philosophy of the L1T was uber important. The inherent harmony of the Lange 1, ie a golden ratio between dial component centers, must be preserved. And the proportions had to remain unaltered. That's easy to say, but harder to execute. As a result, the L1T has a tourbillon carriage that spins in reverse, which was the only way to accomplish that placement, so the running seconds was necessarily separated. The shape of the carriage arms is directly nodding to a 1910 Lange pocket watch. Its bridge is black polished, not hand engraved, and concludes with a diamond jewel for the carriage. You get the engraving on the back. There are 378 components required for the L961, one of few Lange movements which is just as dramatic front-side. 

One also has to appreciate that the discs for the date are, here, made in sapphire so that the portion which overlaps the tourbillon does not obscure its view, unlike the more recent Handwerkskunst iteration (its irregular aperture is its greatest eyesore in my estimation, this shape appears more natural). And Honey Gold, well, it's perfect. 

There have been a handful of auction results to benchmark, interestingly all around the ’19-21 highs. Christie’s hammered one at 86K USD in 2019. Antiquorum reached 175K two years later. Then later in ’21 Phillips sold one at 138K. The low number of data points doesn’t help, but the 722.050 appears to be riding the waves like a modern indie. Does the 722.050 improve on the Lange 1? Not really. To keep it German, you can’t improve on the Carrera S either. But I’m still very glad the GT3 exists. 

The example pictured is from a prior Find offered via Perpetual a few years ago. A near identical example condition-wise is coming up to Christies in about a week. The example on offer is case no. 7. It shows only light surface wear and comes with the full works. As always, you'd want to get some high resolution images for yourself or see it in person before bidding.