A. Lange & Söhne, Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold
When it comes to German haute horlogerie, everything begins—and reaches its pinnacle—in Glashütte at A. Lange & Söhne. Founded in 1845, expropriated after World War II, and eventually forgotten, the Saxon manufacture was reborn in 1990 and rose to the very top of fine watchmaking within just a few years. Few manufactures have such an instantly recognizable signature: untreated German silver three-quarter plates (an invention of the founder), hand-engraved balance cocks, screwed gold chatons, and the principle of double assembly, whereby every movement is assembled, disassembled, and then assembled again. Only a few thousand watches leave its workshops each year, all powered exclusively by in-house calibers.
A. Lange & Söhne introduced the rectangular case in 1997 with the Cabaret. It has returned to the collection only occasionally since then, making every new version all the more eagerly anticipated. The 2026 edition was unveiled in May on the shores of Lake Como at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este, which the manufacture has partnered with for the past fifteen years.
The 50-piece limited edition combines a Honeygold case with a matching dial. Honeygold is the exclusive alloy developed in Glashütte for the maison, harder than traditional 18-karat gold and distinguished by its soft hue that falls somewhere between pink and gray. The black-rhodium dial is divided into three sections: the main dial and two tone-on-tone subdials for the small seconds and power reserve indicator. Roman numerals, diamond-shaped indexes, the signature outsize date at 12 o’clock, and, of course, the centerpiece—the tourbillon—complete the display.
At 6 o’clock, an opening reveals the tourbillon along with its bridge and the upper surface of its cage finished in black polish, an especially demanding technique that reflects light in a very distinctive way. This celebrated tourbillon incorporates the stop-seconds mechanism that Lange introduced in this very model in 2008, a world first: a spring halts the balance wheel inside the rotating cage, regardless of its position.
The sapphire caseback reveals the in-house caliber L042.1, its decorations, and its 370 components—84 of them devoted to the tourbillon alone—including a German silver three-quarter plate decorated with Glashütte ribbing and a ratchet wheel adorned with a sunburst pattern. A twin-barrel system provides this hand-wound caliber with a 120-hour power reserve.
Hanhart, 417 TI Desert Pilot Limited Edition
Far from Saxony and its three-quarter plates, Germany’s other great watchmaking region is the Black Forest. Hanhart has been based there since 1902, manufacturing genuine instruments in Gütenbach: first stopwatches, whose mechanical version it helped popularize in the 1920s, then pilot chronographs beginning in 1938. It is from this lineage that the 417 ES, introduced in 1954, descends, recognizable by its fluted bezel and red marker.
What does the “ES” stand for? Edelstahl, the German word for stainless steel.
The latest addition to the collection is the 417 TI. For the first time in its history, Hanhart has crafted a Grade 5 titanium case, resulting in a matte finish, a darker tone than steel, and, naturally, a noticeably lighter watch on the wrist. Available in 39mm and 42mm versions, each limited to 200 pieces, both have a thickness of 13.6mm beneath a highly domed sapphire crystal inspired by the original 1950s model.
The sand-colored dial and woven-texture rubber strap are inherited from the PRIMUS Desert Pilot, the brand’s contemporary chronograph worn by rally driver Stephan Schott during the Dakar Rally and the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge. Hanhart combines these with its historic design codes, from the vintage logo and Arabic numeral typography to the engraved “h” on the crown.
A word about the Super-LumiNova: the brand itself warns that nighttime legibility will be limited, as the black numerals and sand-colored hands are not particularly suited to the task. The design choice is clear—and rarely expressed with such honesty: daytime readability comes first.
Beneath the screw-down sapphire caseback beats the hand-wound AMT 5100, derived from the Sellita SW510. It features a column wheel, a flyback function allowing the chronograph to be restarted with a single press, hacking seconds, and the brand’s own shock-absorption system. Every movement is regulated in Gütenbach to specifications allowing a rate of 0 to +8 seconds per day in six positions—but never a negative deviation. In other words, a Hanhart may run fast, but never slow.
Glashütte Original, Sixties Chronograph Annual Edition
Neighboring A. Lange & Söhne in the same Saxon valley, Glashütte Original tells a very different story. It is one of continuity, even through the decades when Glashütte watchmaking found itself behind the Iron Curtain. In 1951, the town’s independent watchmaking companies were merged into the state-owned VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe, whose initials—GUB—appeared on most dials of the time.
Today’s manufacture is its direct descendant. Privatized in 1994 and integrated into the Swatch Group in 2000, it embraces that legacy as much as its 19th-century roots. It now produces up to 95% of its movement components in-house and remains the only manufacture in town to make its own dials.
The Sixties collection draws its inspiration from the GUB era. Since 2018, it has featured an Annual Edition each year, dedicated to a specific color and produced only during the calendar year of its introduction, never numbered and never repeated. Previous editions have explored green, gradient orange, glacier blue, and stone gray. For 2026, the spotlight falls on purple, a color associated with record sleeves, band names, and song titles from the 1960s.
The dial is where everything happens—and it is well worth a closer look. The base is a thin strip of bronze onto which a die stamps a textured pattern. The blank is then cut and drilled, while the subdials receive fine concentric grooves during turning that evoke the appearance of vinyl records. The dial is then domed, yellow-gold galvanized, coated by hand with translucent purple lacquer, and baked in an oven.
Finally, the indexes are neither applied nor printed. Instead, they are cut by hand into the lacquered surface, allowing the original bronze beneath to reappear in relief. Every step takes place within the new dial manufacture inaugurated in 2025, the year Glashütte celebrated 180 years of watchmaking.
The rest includes a polished 42mm stainless-steel case, a domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on both sides, and gold-tone hands whose curvature matches that of the crystal to eliminate distortion. Two subdials complete the display: a small seconds counter positioned between 2 and 4 o’clock and a 30-minute counter between 8 and 10 o’clock.
Visible through the sapphire caseback, the automatic caliber 39-34 showcases the manufacture’s signature architecture: a Glashütte ribbed three-quarter plate, beveled edges, polished screws, a swan-neck fine adjustment, and a skeletonized rotor with a 21-karat gold oscillating weight bearing the double-G logo.
NOMOS Glashütte, Club Campus All Olive & Full Rose
In a town where watchmaking history carries enormous weight, NOMOS occupies a unique place. Founded in 1990, the manufacture has no 19th-century heritage to rely on. Instead, it built its reputation first through design, with its clean Bauhaus-inspired dials, and later through technical innovation.
Today, NOMOS is one of the few manufactures to produce its own escapement, the NOMOS Swing System, the beating heart of its in-house calibers. Its watches are entitled to bear the protected designation of origin "Glashütte", which requires that a substantial portion of the movement’s value actually be produced there.
One of the brand’s flagship models, the Club Campus, was designed to commemorate life’s important milestones. NOMOS created it to celebrate occasions such as graduation, a first job, a wedding, or any major turning point. The solid steel caseback is intentionally left blank, ready to be engraved. It is a watch meant to be given—or to give yourself—and worn as a lasting reminder of the occasion it marks.
Every spring, the collection receives new colors, and 2026 is no exception. The All Olive version features a deep khaki green dial warmed by yellow-outlined numerals and indexes, along with a bright orange small seconds display. The Full Rose version opts for a delicate powder-pink dial accented with the same orange details, complemented by light-blue minute markers.
Both retain the Club Campus’s signature California dial, combining Roman numerals on the upper half with Arabic numerals below. They are available in 36mm and 38.5mm stainless-steel cases, paired with vegan velour straps—beige for the rose version and anthracite for the olive.
This year’s real innovation lies beneath the dial. These two versions debut the in-house hand-wound DUW 4001 caliber, equipped with the Swing System recognizable by its blued hairspring, a stop-seconds mechanism, and a 53-hour power reserve.
Adjusted in six positions, it features all the traditional Glashütte hallmarks—a three-quarter plate, Glashütte ribbing, perlage, and blued screws—which can be admired through an optional sapphire caseback. A reminder that beneath its appearance as an accessible first mechanical watch, the Club Campus is every bit the product of a true watch manufacture.
Moritz Grossmann, Hamatic Silver-Plated by Friction
To conclude this tour of Germany, we return to Glashütte—and to the man without whom none of this might exist. In 1854, a young watchmaker from Dresden named Moritz Grossmann settled in the small Saxon town at the encouragement of one Ferdinand Adolph Lange. There he established his workshop and, in 1878, founded the German School of Watchmaking in Glashütte, the institution that nurtured the region’s watchmaking expertise.
In 2026, the manufacture bearing his name celebrates the bicentenary of his birth. It also occupies a unique position among its four neighbors. Re-established in 2008 by watchmaker Christine Hutter, who revived and re-registered a name that had disappeared after the original manufacture was liquidated in 1885, Moritz Grossmann remains the most confidential of them all, producing only a handful of watches each year.
The first in a series of anniversary models announced by the manufacture, the Hamatic lives up to its name. Instead of the central rotor found in most automatic watches, it uses a hammer-shaped oscillating weight: a pendulum-like mechanism that swings in both directions, converting even the slightest wrist movement into energy. The concept dates back to the earliest days of automatic winding in the late 18th century. Grossmann’s engineers have revived and reinterpreted it, creating a mechanical spectacle fully visible through the sapphire caseback.
The model name, "Silver-Plated by Friction", refers to friction silvering, also known as grain silvering, a historic technique still mastered by only a handful of specialists. The dial is brushed by hand using various pastes and powders, then delicately abraded until it acquires a finely grained, velvety surface that catches the light with remarkable subtlety.
The cool blue numerals and scales, the off-center small seconds display, and the "M. GROSSMANN" logo reproduced in its 1875 form stand out clearly against the dial. This edition also marks a first in the Hamatic’s history by replacing the traditional Roman numerals with Arabic numerals. An engraved "1826" on the balance cock discreetly commemorates the founder’s birth year.
The in-house caliber 106.0 brings together all the manufacture’s signature features: an untreated German silver two-thirds plate and elevated balance cock, both hand-engraved; broad horizontal Glashütte ribbing; the Grossmann balance with inertia and regulating screws; screwed gold chatons; and hand-crafted blued steel hands.
Adjusted in five positions, equipped with hacking seconds and a 72-hour power reserve, it beats inside a 41mm white gold case fitted with a blue kudu leather strap. The edition is limited to just 18 pieces.
FAQ:
Q: What is Glashütte?
A: Glashütte is a valley in Saxony, Germany, and the birthplace of the country's fine watchmaking industry since 1845. Today, it is home to four manufactures: A. Lange & Söhne, Glashütte Original, NOMOS Glashütte, and Moritz Grossmann, each known for distinctive hallmarks such as the three-quarter plate and Glashütte ribbing.
Q: Who is A. Lange & Söhne?
A: A. Lange & Söhne is a German fine watchmaking manufacture founded in Glashütte in 1845 and revived in 1990 after being expropriated. It produces only a few thousand watches each year, recognizable by their German silver three-quarter plates and hand-engraved balance cocks, as exemplified by the Cabaret Tourbillon Honeygold unveiled in 2026.
Q: What does Hanhart make?
A: Hanhart is a German manufacture based in Gütenbach, in the Black Forest, since 1902. Initially specializing in stopwatch production, it began manufacturing pilot's chronographs in 1938. Its latest creation, the 417 TI Desert Pilot, carries on this expertise in a titanium case, limited to 200 pieces per size.
Q: What is Glashütte Original?
A: Glashütte Original is a Saxon watch manufacture descended from the state-owned VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe (GUB), which was privatized in 1994 and joined the Swatch Group in 2000. The company manufactures up to 95% of its movement components in-house, including the Caliber 39-34 powering the Sixties Chronograph Annual Edition 2026.
Q: What is the NOMOS Club Campus?
A: The NOMOS Club Campus is a watch from the German manufacture NOMOS Glashütte, designed to commemorate life's milestones, such as a graduation or a wedding, with an engravable stainless steel caseback. The 2026 All Olive and Full Rose versions introduce the in-house manual-winding DUW 4001 caliber.
Q: Who is Moritz Grossmann?
A: Moritz Grossmann is a watch manufacture based in Glashütte, re-established in 2008 by Christine Hutter under the name of the watchmaker who began his work there in 1854. One of the valley's most exclusive manufactures, it produces only a handful of watches each year, including the Hamatic Silver-Plated by Friction, limited to 18 pieces in 2026.
