Two watchmakers from Saxony, both built on hand-finishing. One is a revered manufacture. One is Stefan Kudoke, working largely alone at half the money. So what are you really paying for, the name or the hand?
Matched on
The Saxon, hand-finished, time-only dress watch: quiet dial, the movement as the argument.
A. Lange & Söhne, Glashütte
From about USD 15,000, in solid gold
The reference dress watch of German horology, and Lange's entry point. A three-quarter plate in untreated German silver, a hand-engraved balance cock, an in-house hairspring: the finishing is a benchmark, backed by one of the most respected names in watchmaking. You are buying the standard, and the certainty that comes with it.
Kudoke, Saxony
From about USD 7,900, in steel
A few dozen watches a year from Stefan Kudoke's workshop in Saxony, an hour from Glashütte. The hand-frosting, the engraved balance bridge, the day and night disc: done by his own hand, not a finishing department. In steel, at roughly half the price of the Lange in gold, with a GPHG win to its name. You are buying the hand itself, and a watch almost no one else will be wearing.
The verdict
The Lange is the safer, more valuable, better-known watch, and it will always be. The Kudoke is the more personal one: the same Saxon obsession with finishing, by one man, in steel, at half the money, seen by almost no one. One buys you the name. The other buys you the hand. The quiet answer is usually the more interesting one.
The TGC view
This is the point of the independent index. The mainstream benchmark is easy to admire and easy to buy. The independent takes a little finding, which is exactly what we do: the introduction, the allocation, the visit to the workshop.
An IWC pilot's watch against a Bavarian house that makes its own steel and its own movements. The usual story is that the independent charges a premium. Here it does not, and the establishment name is the one trading under list.
Read the review →Breguet patented the tourbillon in 1801 and puts the patent date on the dial. A twenty-something Frenchman on the shore of Lake Annecy makes twelve tourbillons a year by hand, and charges less. For once the independent is not the expensive one.
Read the review →Two pure round dress watches, and a shared secret: the independent was made by a man who spent thirty-seven years inside one of the great Geneva houses before leaving to sign his own name. The house, or the hand that used to work there?
Read the review →