Glashütte Original is a living expression of the culture of time and timekeeping. It all started back in 1845 and now the art of watch making is brought to perfection.
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Mechanical masterpieces have been manufactured in Saxony's Glashütte since 1845. During the continuous 160-year-old history of the manufactory, the company's watchmakers have achieved keeping its special knowledge and ever rarer human experience alive: the manufacture of a mechanical watch from the movement's invention to the production of almost all components, final assembly, and the fine finishing of a precious timekeeper.
Glashütte Original is one of the few remaining authentic watch manufactories in this world. In their exclusive collections you will find the characteristic elements of classic Glashütte watchmaking such as the swan-neck fine adjustment and the famous three-quarter plate. Hand engraving, manually polished surfaces, and bevelled edges on filigreed movement components document just how obligated the company feel to the tradition of manu factum. At the same time, the company is successful in uniting their timekeepers to the past, present, and future with modern designs and innovative ideas.
After almost four centuries of mining, the silver found until then dried up at beginning of the nineteenth century and great poverty broke out over the town of Glashütte. Ferdinand Adolph Lange, master watchmaker to the Saxon court, brought new hope to the place with the founding of the first watch manufactory. His vision was to make an independent Saxon watch industry concentrating on the production of high precision watches in comparably small numbers. Glashütte's municipal coat of arms, existing in its present form since 1912, displays the history of the city, a past first characterized by mining and then watchmaking.
Well-known watchmakers followed Lange's call, with Julius Assmann at the forefront. At his Deutsche Präzisions-Taschenuhrenfabrik, he manufactured precision watches outfitted with elements typical of Glashütte, such as the three-quarter plate and a hand-engraved balance cock, that were awarded prizes all over the world. A model from Julius Assmann’s company is a pocket watch from around 1905 featuring a tripartite enamelled dial typical of Glashütte and wonderfully decorative gold hands in Louis XV style.
After the first developments such as winding by crown, the Glashütte three-quarter plate, and the lever escapement, even more complex mechanisms were being made. The first Glashütte watch with a stop function (1863), repeaters, and calendar watches followed. Now, Glashütte is bringing the beautiful timepieces, brilliant in design, fantastic in functionality. Surely the watch you must have. ■