Quick answer

If you are searching for a replica Lange 2 Perpetual 725.038, here is the short version: a true perpetual calendar has never come out of the replica trade. What you get for a few hundred dollars is a calendar watch wearing a perpetual calendar's clothes. It will show a day, a date, a month and a moon. It will photograph beautifully. It will also get lost the first February it meets, drift on the moonphase, and need resetting with a pin or a hidden pusher. The real watch it copies sells for six figures on the secondary market.

What "Lange 2 Perpetual 725.038" actually refers to

As far as I can tell, A. Lange & Sohne has never made a model called the Lange 2. The German house's naming runs Lange 1, Grand Lange 1, Little Lange 1, Saxonia, Richard Lange, Zeitwerk, Odysseus. "Lange 2" is listing shorthand, common on seller pages, usually pasted onto a Lange 1 style dial with an outsize date and a moon. Treat it as a search tag, not a model name.

The number 725.038 is the same story. It reads like a reference, and sellers use it like one, but reference numbers get recycled, mistyped and invented in this market. Before you assume it maps to a specific gold perpetual calendar, check it against Lange's own catalog. If the listing shows a number Lange never published, that tells you something about the rest of the listing.

Why a perpetual calendar is the hardest thing to fake

A three-hand watch can be copied to a level that fools almost anyone at arm's length. A perpetual calendar is a different problem. The mechanism has to know the length of every month and add February 29 in leap years without input, forever. That takes a 48-month cam, a lever system and tolerances that cost real money to make. No replica factory is doing that at scale.

  • Leap year. Real perpetual calendars carry a leap-year indicator and a program wheel. Most reps show a four-position window that does not move on its own, or moves only when you press something.
  • Moonphase. Lange states its moon phase deviates from the real synodic month by one day in 122 years. Rep moon discs are usually driven off a 24-hour wheel or a simple gear train and will be visibly off within weeks.
  • Outsize date. Lange's big date is two separate discs with a patented mechanism that keeps the tens digit honest. Reps often use one disc, or two discs that sit a hair out of line and show a gap at the aperture edge.
  • Balance cock engraving. Every Lange movement has a hand-engraved balance cock, no two alike. Replicas are laser-etched or stamped, and under a loupe the cuts look shallow and repeatable.
  • Case metal and weight. Lange builds in gold, platinum and honeygold. Replicas are steel with plating. The heft is wrong in the hand even when it looks right in a photo.

What I look at before handing over money

  1. Ask for a video of the date changing at midnight. A perpetual should roll cleanly and instantly. A rep module usually creeps or double-steps.
  2. Ask which movement is inside. If the seller cannot name the base caliber, you are buying a mystery.
  3. Test every pusher on video. Month, moon, day, date. Recessed pushers that need a toothpick are a warning sign, not a feature.
  4. Count the days in a month on the watch, then imagine February. Ask the seller directly what happens on March 1.
  5. Look at the caseback engraving and the movement finishing at macro distance, not across a table.
  6. Ignore water resistance claims. Nobody pressure-tests these, and the gaskets are an unknown.

Money, customs and service reality

Expect a few hundred dollars, more if the seller is dressing it up with a box and papers that are also fake. Two costs rarely get mentioned. First, shipping from China carries seizure risk, and the seller's policy on a lost parcel is usually "not my problem." Second, no independent watchmaker wants to open a replica perpetual calendar module. Parts do not exist, diagrams do not exist, and the labor to figure it out costs more than the watch.

Compare that to the genuine article. A Lange perpetual calendar trades in the tens of thousands to low six figures at auction, comes with service support, and holds value. That gap is real, and it is not closed by a replica.

Bottom line

Buy the replica Lange 2 Perpetual 725.038 if you want the look, accept that the calendar is theater, and pay a price you can shrug off. Do not buy it expecting a perpetual calendar, a serviceable movement, or anything that behaves like a Lange. The number in the listing will not save you from any of that.