Glashütte Original Sixties Chronograph Annual Edition 2026 — Saxon In-House Chronograph in Hand-Lacquered Translucent Purple

Description

For 2026, Glashütte Original returns to the colour palette of psychedelia. The new Sixties Chronograph Annual Edition Purple (reference 1-39-34-08-22-04) is the latest entry in a series that has quietly become the manufacture's most consistently inventive annual exercise — a single colour and a single dial finish, executed once and then retired from the catalogue at year's end. Translucent purple lacquered over hand-galvanised gold, the embossed sixties-era ripple texture catches the light in shades that drift from deep aubergine to lit amethyst depending on how the wrist moves.

This is a 42 mm polished-steel chronograph, in-house through and through, priced at USD 10,000, and produced for one year before it slips away. Glashütte Original does not number the editions — there is no "X of 300" on the caseback — but the production window is the limitation, and previous annual editions have already become quietly hard to find on the secondary market. The Purple is positioned as the brand's editorial answer to the question of what a value-for-money Saxon chronograph with a real dial-craft story looks like in 2026.

Design

The case is an unchanged Sixties Chronograph silhouette: 42 mm in diameter, 12.4 mm thick, 48.5 mm lug-to-lug, polished stainless steel, with rounded case flanks, a slim bezel, and a high-domed sapphire crystal that lets the colour breathe. The piston-style chronograph pushers are period-correct, the crown is fluted, and the sapphire caseback exposes the in-house calibre. Water resistance is 30 m — drinks-and-formals territory, not a tool watch — and the fitted strap is a black synthetic fabric with a steel pin buckle that wears closer than a textured rubber and lets the dial carry the watch.

The dial is the point. It is produced in Glashütte Original's own dial manufactory in Pforzheim from a thin bronze blank that is first embossed with the fine-grooved sixties ripple, then cut, then domed, galvanised in gold, hand-coated with translucent purple lacquer, and kiln-fired. The hour markers are not printed and not applied — they are manually incised through the lacquer to reveal the gold beneath. The minute track is white-printed at the rehaut; painted white Arabic 12 and 6 give the dial its axis; small luminous dots at every other index handle the night-time reading. The hour, minute and central chronograph seconds hands are gold-plated, slightly bent at the tips to follow the curve of the crystal, and inlaid with Super-LumiNova. Running seconds sit at 3 o'clock, the 30-minute totaliser at 9 o'clock; both subdials carry a snailed finish.

Specifications

Reference: 1-39-34-08-22-04
Case diameter: 42 mm
Case thickness: 12.4 mm
Lug-to-lug: 48.5 mm
Case material: polished stainless steel
Bezel: polished steel, slim
Crystal: domed sapphire with double-sided anti-reflective coating
Caseback: sapphire (display)
Water resistance: 30 m
Dial: translucent purple hand-lacquered over hand-galvanised gold base; fine-grooved sixties ripple emboss; manually incised hour markers; printed white Arabic 12 and 6; luminous dots
Hands: gold-plated, lightly curved, Super-LumiNova inlays
Movement: Calibre 39-34 — in-house Glashütte Original automatic chronograph
Frequency: 28,800 vph (4 Hz)
Jewels: 51
Power reserve: 40 hours
Winding: automatic, with manual winding via crown
Finishing: Saxon three-quarter plate, Glashütte stripes, bevelled edges, polished screws, swan-neck fine adjustment
Complications: chronograph (central seconds and 30-minute counter), small running seconds
Strap: black synthetic fabric, stainless-steel pin buckle
Limited edition: not numbered; production runs for one year only, then leaves the catalogue
Price: USD 10,000 (EUR 9,800 incl. 19% VAT; CHF 8,700)
Availability: from May 2026, via Glashuette-Original.com and authorised retailers

What's Exciting

Glashütte Original's annual editions occupy a curious territory: they are not technical novelties, they are not numbered limited editions in the traditional sense, and the calibre underneath has been in production for over a decade. What makes them editorially defensible — and what makes the Purple specifically interesting — is the dial. The Pforzheim manufactory is one of the very few in-house operations in the segment that can take a bronze blank from embossed-raw to translucent-lacquered-finished-and-incised under one roof, and the Purple is the most labour-intensive iteration of that process the series has produced since the 2021 vibrant green. The hand-incised indices revealing the gold base, the kiln-fired lacquer that genuinely shifts under different light, the swan-neck-regulated 39-34 underneath — at USD 10,000 there is, frankly, nothing comparable in the segment. The Junghans Meister Driver undercuts on price but not on finishing; the IWC Portofino Chronograph at this price band rides a Sellita base; the Nomos Zürich Worldtimer Chronograph is a different kind of watch entirely. The Purple sits alone.

History

Glashütte Original traces its lineage to the VEB Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe state combine formed in 1951 from the post-war consolidation of the historic Saxon watchmakers — UROFA, the remnants of A. Lange & Söhne, Estate of Mühle, Tutima, and several others. After German reunification the combine was privatised, eventually becoming Glashütte Original under the Swatch Group umbrella in 2000. The Sixties family was launched in 2007 as a deliberate creative reach back to the 1960s Spezimatic wristwatches the combine had produced for the East German market, and the Sixties Chronograph joined the line in 2018.

The Annual Edition programme started in 2018 and has now produced glacier blue (2020), vibrant fine-textured green (2021), fiery orange degradé (2022), stone grey (2023), and now translucent purple (2026) — each with a unique embossed dial pattern, each capped at one year of production. The Pforzheim dial manufactory the brand acquired in 2006 is what makes this annual experiment technically possible at scale, and it remains one of the brand's most genuine strategic moats. The 2026 Purple is the seventh entry in the series and the first to use a kiln-fired translucent lacquer over a manually incised base in this exact configuration.