A. Lange & Söhne Saxonia Ultrathin

Two hands and nothing more.  For years that’s been the basest requirement of a dress watch. And for years — ever since the manufacturer’s reestablishment in 1990 — no one has done dress watches as well as A. Lange & Söhne. Still, the question of what makes a fine timepiece has befuddled collectors for decades. In watch collecting, particularly in the world of haute horlogerie, there’s the mistaken notion that a watch must be complicated to be considered a work of art. But sometimes there’s beauty in simplicity — not a stark, antiseptic kind of simplicity, but the kind of austere beauty that comes when watchmaking is distilled to its simplest elements. The Saxonia Ultrathin is one such watch. At a perfectly modern 37mm in diameter, it consists of nothing more than a manually wound movement powering two thin hands around a simple dial. No date, no power reserve indicator — no seconds hand, even! (Who needs to time something to the second when decked out in white tie, after all?)  The example of the Saxonia we have here is in outstanding, lightly worn condition throughout. It features a 37mm case finished in 18K rose gold, a satin silver dial with applied rose gold indices, a matching alpha handset, and a signed brown alligator leather strap with a matching signed rose gold pin buckle (one of our favorites). Finally, flip this beauty over and gaze through the sapphire case back at the incredibly finished, manually winding Calibre L093.1 movement within. Once you do, you can’t help but understand the Saxonia’s appeal. We get it.