n 1991 the renowned watch expert Dr Helmut Crott organised a themed auction of watches from Glashütte. Coming two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and a year after German reunification, the sale took place at a decisive moment in the history of both the country and its watchmaking.

A preview held on April 4th, 1991 in Dresden was attended by Walter Lange and numerous figures from this heartland of German watchmaking — one that was only just emerging from almost 50 years of communist rule, when the entire industry had been merged into a single entity.

The sale offered Glashütte-made watches from all eras, from a simple three-hand pocket watch to some of the most complicated pieces ever produced by A. Lange & Söhne, including the Grande Complication n°99901 and the Tourbillon n° 42501.

Dr Helmut Crott is the organiser of an exhibition of Glashütte watches. It echoes a similar event 50 years ago, curated by Martin Huber for the 100th anniversary of the passing of Ferdinand Adolf Lange.

In 2025, for the 150th anniversary of Ferdinand Adolf Lange’s death, the same Dr Crott is organising, in conjunction with Phillips, a non-selling exhibition of historic Glashütte watches from his private collection. It covers the period from the early days of watchmaking in Glashütte up to the first models marking its revival in the mid-1990s. After Geneva (November 5-9), the exhibition will travel to Hong Kong (November 16-23) then New York (December 3-7).

Johan Christian Friedrich Gutkaes (1785-1845), no. 9, ca. 1820. Quarter repeating and quarter striking grande sonnerie clock watch. 20k pink gold case. Ferdinand Adolf Lange’s father-in-law, Gutkaes served as clockmaker to the Court of Saxony in Dresden and had a considerable influence on the birth of the Glashütte watch industry.

This new exhibition echoes a sale held in 1976 for the 100th anniversary of the great watchmaker’s passing. This earlier auction was curated by another expert, Martin Huber, who played a decisive role in the ascendancy and perception of historic Glashütte watches. “The exhibition, at the premises of Andreas Huber’s firm, together with the accompanying publication, Die Uhren von A. Lange & Söhne Glashütte Sachsen in 1976, triggered a boom for Glashütte watches,” notes Dr Crott.

As Martin Huber wrote in this authoritative publication: “All genuine art ultimately proves itself when it comes under the scrutiny of subsequent generations. Only through the lens of time can they evaluate it objectively.”

An unusual delivery service

Half a century later, this new exhibition is the opportunity for Dr Crott to recall certain moments in his collector’s journey and, most of all, look back at his relationship with Glashütte watchmaking. “My interest in watches began in 1972, in a small antiques shop in my hometown of Aachen, Germany, where in 1975 I founded an auction house for art and antiques. For various reasons I then decided to specialise in collector’s watches. I was introduced to Glashütte watches by a former schoolfriend, Richard Miklosch. He pulled a fully functioning watch from his pocket and told me ‘This is the best precision timepiece ever made’. Although I had only rudimentary knowledge of the subject at the time, I was immediately struck by the visual aesthetics of the movement.”

Bruno Reichert, Berlin (1899-1944), Deutsche Uhrmacherschule Glashütte (D.U.S.), no. 2973, “Sondernummer” 11, ca. 1921/1931. This watch won first place in the Sonderklasse chronometry trial at the Hamburg naval observatory in 1939. Reichert’s watch is the most spectacular of the flying tourbillons created under Alfred Helwig’s guidance.

The watch in Richard Miklosch’s pocket was a flying tourbillon from the famous Glashütte School; specifically the 1930/31 tourbillon made by Max Hahn and bearing the school number 3673. “That was my Eureka! moment and ultimately the start of my career as a watch consultant and collector,” Dr Crott continues. “Some of these iconic watches were to pass through my hands over the following 50 years and some even found a place in my collection.”

He was able to fulfil his dream of owning a Lange watch when he purchased an open A. Lange & Söhne gold pocket watch from a certain Mr Tölke (who would later co-author the famous “Lange Liste”) at an antiques market in Stuttgart in 1975. The first of many.

As early as the 1970s, Dr Crott was travelling to what was then the German Democratic Republic to find out more about the objects of his desire. “No journey was too far for me, no effort too much, no risk too great to acquire a rare Glashütte watch,” he declares. So it was that in 1979, on one such visit, a taxi driver took Dr Crott on a “forbidden detour” to Leipzig, to an unassuming watch shop.

A. Lange & Söhne Glashütte I/Sachsen, no. 62510, ca. 1911. An extremely rare minute repeating grande and petite sonnerie clock watch. 18k open-face Lucia case with glazed case-back. Glazed and hand-painted dial with Roman numerals and the inscription Ahmed Kheir Bashi.

Dr Crott picks up the story: “To my astonishment and delight, I saw a wonderful chronometer escapement model from the German Watchmaking School in the window. When I asked the owner how much it might cost, he answered that it was his father’s masterpiece and not for sale. I only had one chance and that was to surprise him with an unexpected offer. I offered him all my cash, the princely sum of DM 7,000. He agreed. I was overjoyed.”

The question remained: how to get the watch out of East Germany? Officially, it was impossible but the shop owner had a solution. “Being pensioners, his grandparents had a visa for an upcoming trip to West Germany. The item would enter West Germany unnoticed in their luggage. Two weeks later, I was able to receive my escapement model at the agreed location in the Federal Republic. On October 27th, 1979 the item found its place of honour in the auction catalogue under lot no. 45.”

Dr Crott returned to East Germany a few months before reunification. “The old GDR structures were still visible and tangible everywhere, including the border posts. But there was a special mood in the air, the motivation for a new beginning and hope for a better future. I felt it in the friendliness and openness of the people I met. I had the same feeling during my trip to Portugal in 1974 during the Carnation Revolution and when I visited Moscow in 1986 during the transformative years of glasnost and perestroika.”

Revive interest in historic Glashütte watches

Having centred on watches from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, by the mid-1970s collectors’ interest had turned to more recent pieces, as Dr Crott observes: “When I entered the milieu, the precision pocket watches of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were already the focus of attention. As a result, watches from Glashütte and, in particular, watches by A. Lange & Söhne became coveted collector’s items.”

The resurgence of interest in historic Glashütte watches reaffirmed Dr Crott’s desire to promote this market, as did the success of the first collection by the newly relaunched A. Lange & Söhne in 1994. One of his ambitions for the exhibition at Phillips is that it should spark the same excitement and interest that surrounded Glashütte watches in the 1990s, with the rediscovery of this unique heritage.

A. Lange & Söhne, Glashütte B/Dresden, no. 60032, ca. 1913. A very rare minute repeating, grande and petite sonnerie clock watch with split-seconds chronograph with 30-minute register.

“Prices for the rare and high-quality historic Lange and Glashütte watches have fallen considerably behind in relation to comparable Swiss watches,” Dr Crott observes. “There are, of course, points of great satisfaction such as the sale this year, by Phillips, of an A. Lange & Söhne grande complication. These watches are part of Germany’s national heritage but must gain wider international recognition. My aim is to revitalise the market for historic Glashütte watches, whose driving force is A. Lange & Söhne.”

Indeed, the generation of collectors who discovered Lange post-revival did so through the brand’s wristwatches. This, Dr Crott believes, leaves considerable opportunity to introduce them to the earlier pocket watches.

Highlights of the exhibition

One of the standout pieces among the thirty-some in the exhibition has to be the watch by Johan Christian Friedrich Gutkaes, n°9 (ca. 1820): a superbly made and probably unique quarter-repeating and quarter-striking grande sonnerie cased in 20k pink gold with white enamel dial. J.C.F. Gutkaes (1785-1845) was Ferdinand Adolf Lange’s father-in-law. He served as clockmaker to the Court of Saxony in Dresden and played a prominent role in the development of the Glashütte watch industry.

Dr Crott is also proud to present an A. Lange & Söhne watch from 1913. It ranks just below the grande complication sold at Phillips this year for the number of complications and is extremely rare, being just one of two ever made. This minute-repeating watch with grande and petite sonnerie incorporates a split-seconds chronograph and 30-minute register.

Uhrenfabrik Union Glashütte in Sachsen, no. 44502, ca. 1902. A grande complication minute repeating grande and petite sonnerie clock watch with split-seconds chronograph, 30-minute register, flying 1/5th second, perpetual calendar and moon phases.

Indicative of Dr Crott’s personal taste is a highly original model from 1911. A modern-looking minute-repeating watch with grande and petite sonnerie, it has an open-face case and glazed back. Other noteworthy pieces are the tourbillons made at the Glashütte Watchmaking School under the supervision of Alfred Helwig (1886-1974), master of the flying tourbillon. That of Bruno Reichert (1899-1944), a one-minute flying tourbillon with up/down indication, took first place in the Sonderklasse chronometry trial at the Hamburg naval observatory in 1939 (Alfred Helwig regulated all the school tourbillons for the competition). It is, believes Dr Crott, “the most spectacular of all the flying tourbillons created under Helwig’s guidance.”

The Tourbillon “Pour Le Mérite” ref. 701.001 deploys the same ingenious concept of a tiny planetary gear inside the fusee. It was one of the four closed-back wristwatches presented for the return of A. Lange & Söhne in 1994, the others being the Lange 1, the Saxonia and the Arkade. All are included in the exhibition, as is the later Datograph.

A. Lange & Söhne Glashütte i.Sa., ref. 701.001, Tourbillon “Pour le Mérite” with power reserve indication m. no. 406, c. no. 110323. Limited edition in yellow gold no. 73/150. 1998. Signalling the brand’s revival, this was the first wristwatch to incorporate a fusee-and-chain transmission.

Just as Ferdinand Adolf Lange’s influence extended beyond his own brand to make Glashütte a globally renowned centre for watchmaking, Dr Crott’s collection includes watches by manufacturers other than A. Lange & Söhne. “So many times I have missed out on the brand’s grandes complications. Fortunately I have been able to acquire sometimes even more complicated models by Union Glashütte, which employed some of the town’s finest watchmakers in the early twentieth century.” The exhibition shows one of the six grandes complications ever made by Union Glashütte: a minute-repeating grande and petite sonnerie with split-seconds chronograph, 30-minute register, flying 1/5th second, perpetual calendar and moon phases, from 1902.

Dr Helmut Crott’s objective is to make his contribution to international recognition for Glashütte watches. More than ever, collectors’ long-term commitment to a brand is influenced by performance at auction. This creates virtuous circles that benefit a limited number of makers. Dr Crott, in his own way, seeks to extend this circle and encourage new collectors to become interested in Glashütte’s watchmaking — both historic and contemporary.