A Lange & Söhne Saxonia Moon Phase

New watch to me. Below you’ll find why and how I got it. If you not into such stuff you can stop reading at this point. For you interested, welcome.

Since I first saw the black Saxonia outsized date from A Lange & Söhne at the London meetup in March last year I have been smitten. The watch, that a WC member generously shared, was the 37mm in white gold with a black dial. The watch made such impression that I decided to hunt one down in the future. So the last year I had my radar on, to see if the watch popped up on the internet. Primarily I usually look within EU. I otherwise have to book a ticket and smuggle the watch into my country or face a 25% VAT add on plus custom fees on top of the selling price. I found that my prefered iteration were not so common. The yellow and rose gold versions seemed more available. The ones for sale was attached with a price tag that I realised would mean a purchase had to be postponed years from now if I would put in cash only.

In one of his latest videos Federico, ”Federico Talks Watches” describes how he choose his watches. He said he always has a couple of watches he likes to own. The one from his prospect list he go for is solely based on opportunity instead of chasing a single one. That is a concept I can relate to. Opportunity in this sence means of course price and timing, and for me geography.

The same day @TheHoroSexual published his post about his trade of watches to obtain his meteorite GMT a dealer in my capital published their Saxonia Moon Phase with a black dial in white gold. This model is 40mm instead of the 37mm I got aquinted with last year.

For me this was an Opportunity with a Capital O. Firstly the watch was priced very conservative. On par with what I seen from Japanese and US dealers. Lange is not very common in Scandinavia. There is no AD representation so Germany is the closest point of sale. The fact that the dealer was close to my home and is trading with pre-loved watches made it possible for me to actually see the watch before buying and to be able to trade in some watches as part of the deal. I was not in a position to cash buy but by off loading two of my watches I could see it happen.

Even I have realised that I can’t just acculumate watches, and the amount of money I put in, forever. Though I haven’t reached the ”one in - one out” state of mind just yet, I have come to a tipping point were more watches doesn’t make sence. In this particular case it was necessary to off load something to make a purchase financially possible. After evaluation, the ones I let go was the BB58 and the Explorer II Polar. 

My Saxonia is the black dial, white gold, Moon Phase with reference 384.029. It was originally purchased April 2023 with one year guarantee remaining. My first Lange and in fact my first German watch. When I tried it on at the dealer it didn’t disappoint a bit. A deep matt black that sometimes looks blue. A chrystal that in certain angles swallow all reflection making the watch look without it. A major star of the show is the outsized date at 12. It balance perfect with the sub dial and Moon phase at 6. Needless to say I’m very happy with this watch and believe the feeling will surpass the honeymoon phase I obviously going through right now.

So where do I position the Saxonia in my collection. I see it as a contemporary sporty dress watch. I don’t know if there is such a thing, but that is how I look at it. So together with the blue VC 56 and the silver JLC MasterControl I say I completed a, to me, perfect trio.