In the minds of watch fans today, the name of Oris is synonymous with the mechanical watch.
This didn't just happen by accident, of course.At the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s,
when the "normal" watch consumer was becoming more educated in the ways of mechanical watches,
the small watch company Oris, hailing from Holstein in the hinterlands of Basel (one od the few
factories in German-speaking part of thr Switzerland), registered the growing demand and reacted
immediately. At first the cases were designed with the 1940s in mind and seemed a bit old-fashioned,
but today they are stylred more contemporarily, and the watches themselves have also been outfitted
with some remarkable technical innovations. Secure in its good nose for the likes and dislikes of its
clientele, Oris presented models like the Pointer, with an unusual sweep calender hand, the Complication,
and Rectangular. The World-timer models, sporting a dial train exclusively developed for Oris, proves
that the company also has the technical competence to modify ETA base movements immensely.
And let's not forget the overly large crown on some models, a characteristic that has practically become
Oris's trademark over the last decade. In keeping with this, the company named an entire line Big Crown,
now known in its abbreviated from BC. Certainly a large part of the appreciation that Oris presently enjoys
has to do with the serious interest of the clientele in their "high mach " watches.