Pocket watches are really having a moment again, and Sotheby’s isn’t sitting on the sidelines. Daryn Schnipper at Sotheby’s is the Queen of Pocket Watches, and she and the team have brought out a few goodies. The first is one of the most impressive examples of early Glashütte watchmaking, a 1916 A. Lange & Söhne grand complication that’s truly a watch meant for a museum. This watch has everything you could want in an early pocket watch: it’s a perpetual calendar, minute-repeating, grande and petite sonnerie, keyless lever clock, moon phases, double chronograph, and register. The fifth of nine made, based on a Piguet ébauche but with incredible finishing done in Germany, it’s the last one in pink gold and is in the same collection since 1939. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime watch with a once-in-a-lifetime price (CHF 700,000 to 1,200,000). Of similar Piguet-based construction, but less complicated, is the Lange triple complication from 1928. It’s sold twice in the last 20-ish years, but it’s still a beautiful watch, and the estimate is CHF 150,000 to CHF 300,000.
Mark Kauzlarich
2026-05-05 17:00:00