When searching for a reasonably priced vintage mechanical wristwatch, today's collectors invariably come across the brand "Oris."
What many may not realize is that Oris watches have been around for more than 100 years. Their market niche up until fairly recently has been the low- to medium-priced market, starting out with pin pallet movements which, surprisingly, kept excellent time (even winning chronometer awards) through careful design and manufacture.
The company was founded in 1904 by Paul Cattin and Georges Christian at Hölstein, Switzerland.
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| Paul Cattin |
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| Georges Christian |
They built upon the remainder of a failed company founded two years earlier called Lohner and Nagelin, which had trademarked the name "Oris" in 1903. It is said they chose that name after a nearby brook. These were perilous times for the Swiss watch manufacturing industry, which had for some time been moving from a "cottage industry" of literally hundreds of manufacturers to a concentration of a few dozen. Cattin and Christian decided to make Roskopf-style watches, basically throw-away timepieces for the masses.
Soon their 22 employees were taking orders for all the watches they could produce. By 1911, the company had 300 workers and was the largest employer in Hölstein. It has been estimated by one source that Oris has produced well over 96 million watches since its inception, and many of those are the early pin-lever (Roskopf) pocket watches.
As is the case with most watch companies, we do not know when Oris introduced its first wristwatch for men. The official Oris website pins the year at 1925, with the company attaching fittings to pocket watches to transform them into wrist.
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| An early Oris "wrist" watch adapted from a pocket watch |
In 1938, Oris introduced the watch that defines the company more than any other: The "Big Crown" pointer calendar model. It was initially introduced as a watch for airplane pilots, who could adjust the watch with its telltale oversized crown while wearing leather gloves.
Production during WWII concentrated on small clocks rather than watches, but production and sales of wristwatches remained an important part of production through the 1940s, with American companies constrained by wartime production. So it is not surprising to find a 1945 ad (below) in the International Horological Review showing an alarm clock in addition to sport and dress models for men and women.
In 1952, Oris launched its first automatic movement, the Caliber 601, a 12-ligne size movement with 17 jewels and a power reserve indicator. It was of their own (pin-lever escapement) design and not built on an ebauche from another manufacturer.
In 1956, Oris decided it wanted to switch to jeweled lever escapements in its movements in place of pin-lever. But there was a problem. In 1934, the Swiss government passed the so-called "Watch Statute," a peculiar law designed to protect and regulate the industry that prevented watch companies from introducing new technologies without permission from the government. Many of Oris's competitors had adopted such technology before the law was passed, and now Oris wanted to catch up. It took 10 years to get approval so that Oris could start using jeweled lever escapements in its watch movements.
In 1970, Oris became part of ASUAG, which would eventually become Swatch Group. The timing couldn’t be worse, as the quartz crisis gripped the Swiss watch industry. Oris, no longer independent, endured a difficult decade during which production plummeted and staff numbers dipped from 900 to only a few dozen. Oris struggled with only the name kept alive to sell a few quartz watches, 1950s reproductions, and some rather cheesy looking novelty watches, mostly to the Asian markets.
In 1982, with Oris in decline, former company execs led a buyout of Oris from ASUAG/Swatch. The newly formed Oris SA was once again an independent company. Company Chairman Ulrich Herzog vowed Oris would produce only mechanical watches, a transition that wouldn’t be completed until 1992. In 1984, he introduced a new version of the Pointer Calendar model (first seen in 1938) now with a jeweled-lever escapement.
In 1991, Oris introduced its most complicated movement to date, the Caliber 581 (shown in a watch below). It is based on the ETA 2688/2671 automatic movement with a power reserve of 40 hours, and day/date calendar. Oris added a moonphase module developed by an in-house team of watchmakers.
In 1996 Oris sponsored the London Jazz Festival, marking the company’s first major partnership and the beginning of a strong connection between Oris and the jazz world. Oris gained the endorsement of jazz legend Andy Sheppard, a British saxophonist. Other legends (or their estates) would follow, including Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and arguably one of the finest jazz artists of the 20th century, Miles Davis. The Davis series is most interesting because it came in rectangular and tonneau shapes, in addition to a diamond-studded lady’s version.
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| One of several Miles Davis tribute watches |
Today, Oris's website at www.oris.ch is replete with mostly men's models and a few ladies’ watches divided into the "collections" mentioned earlier. Prices start at around $1,500, so the "new" Oris is obviously not aiming for the lower-end of the market like the Oris of old. But I would argue they are squarely in the "popularly priced" market. Their current slogan of “Real watches for real people” seems to hit the mark. And for closeout, overstock and discontinued models, the collector of modest means can find supreme satisfaction on many “grey-market” discount and auction websites within in the three-figure range (Don’t expect a factory warranty, though!)
What to collect?
Now that you know a bit of Oris’s history, the next question becomes what to collect. It seems to me that the history of Oris can be divided into three eras: 1) pre-1966 when ALL Oris watches had pin-lever escapements; 2) 1966 to the mid-’80s when SOME watches had jeweled lever escapements; and 3) post mid-’80s to current day when ALL Oris watches have jeweled-lever escapements. It’s really up to the individual, but let me add my observations and perspectives as a collector and historian of vintage watches.
Pre-1966: It is difficult to find pre-’66 vintage Oris watches in nice condition, cosmetically and mechanically. You don’t see many in my article, because I couldn’t find any that looked half-way decent! The typical pre-1996 Oris watches you find on auctions sites and Internet sales boards look very much like the watch below. Cases were electroplated in those days and never wore very well. It’s hard to find a pre-’66 Oris that doesn’t at least have lug wear (and usually worse) unless it is new-old stock, or was worn very little by the original owner.
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| Typical vintage (pre 1996) Oris |
Finally, we have what I call Oris’s modern period, from the mid-’80s to current day. As I stated earlier, this time period is not my game. But I do think modern Oris represents a good value, and watches from this time period have great potential to become the collectible vintage watches of tomorrow, especially some of the limited-edition models.
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