by Ian Skellern
When you think of high-end mechanical watches, the first country that comes to mind is usually Switzerland (with good reason). However, next door Germany is quietly developing, or more accurately, re-developing, a solid watchmaking culture of its own.
While the two most well known German brands are A. Lange & Söhne and Glashütte Original, there are quite a few smaller German brands deserving our attention. Some with names you may have heard of, a few you may not have: Glashütte Original, Nomos, Lang & Heyne, Tutima, Kudoke and Leinfelder.
Below are a few watches from German brands exhibiting at Baselworld this year. A. Lange & Söhne misses out here because it exhibited at the SIHH in Geneva in January.
And yes, there are six watches here, not the five in the title, as I didn’t have the heart to delete anyone.
The Glashütte Original Senator Chronograph Panorama Date features an automatic winding movement with integrated, column-wheel flyback chronograph. For more, please check out Two Very Different Chronographs Launch At Baselworld: Glashütte Original And De Bethune.
Kudoke is known for hand-engraved dials and movements, especially hand-engraved skeleton watches, and you can see why.
We don’t tend to hear a lot about Tutima and that’s surprising as the brand has a solid collection of great watches. The Tutima Hommage Minute Repeater is one of my favorites.
Leinfelder is a new Munich-based brand in the Tempus Arte group. For more information on that, please read Lang & Heyne’s Marco Lang Heads New Watch Group.
A Baselworld highlight for many was the Nomos Metro, and no wonder as the Metro features an in-house movement including the brand’s new in-house “Swing System” escapement. But if that isn’t quite enough, the price of just €2,600 should be. For more on the Metro and Swing System, please click Bravo, Nomos! How The Metro Will Change The Watch Game.
Lang & Heyne is on a roll this year, with the brand’s co-founder Lang & Heyne’s Marco Lang heading a new watch group.
The Augustus pictured here was developed from an invention by Dutch watch aficionado John Twaalfhoven. Augustus displays significant dates such as birthdays and anniversaries by means of a series of calculations and is now the most complicated (and most expensive) model in the Lang & Heyne collection. For more, please read Lang & Heyne’s Marco Lang Heading a New Watch Group.
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