German repeating pocket watch with chronograph Circa 1887

Open faced 18k gold pocket watch by A. Lange & Söhne
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A German heavy Glashütte minute repeating pocket watch with chronograph manufactured in quality 1A, sold on 03/30/1887 to Julius Heinzel in Lodz for the sum of 2000 Marks – with certificate of the watch museum Glashütte and a copy of the Lange & Söhne records.
18 carat pink gold case, applied monogram and crown; white enamel dial with black Arabic hours, red Arabic minutes, a sunk subsidiary dial for the seconds, a centre chronograph hand and gold Louis XV hands;  3/4 plate movement, 2 hammers / 2 gongs and gold screw compensation balance. Dial and movement signed and numbered.
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Diameter: 52 mm
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Weight: 146 g
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Signed: A. Lange & Söhne Glashütte B/Dresden
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The certificate issued by the watch and clock museum in Glashütte lists the handsome sum of 2,000 marks for this chronograph with minute repeater, which was delivered to the Julius Heinzel company. This was, however, not a jewellery or watchmaking business but belonged to Polish industrialist Juliusz Jozef Heinzel Baron Hohenfels , a member of the emerging middle class in Lodz; Heinzel and many of his peers sought to establish a kind of aristocratic lifestyle for themselves by collecting art and building the grand town residences that even today shape the character of the town.
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The Heinzels were a German Catholic family who had moved to Lodz after the so-called November Uprising 1830/31. Their son Juilusz Josef was born in 1834 and would later manage his father’s weaving mill. When he married Paulina Volkman, the daughter of a member of the weaver’s guild in Lodz, her dowry enabled him to establish his own weaving mill. The business was so successful that he was awarded the hereditary title of “Manufaktur-Sovetnik”, which honoured the successful factory owner but was not a title of nobility. To lend even more class to his reputation and his wealth, Heinzel eventually bought Castle Hohenfels in what was then the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld for the sum of 100,000 roubles; from 1891 on he bore the title of Baron Hohenfels.