BIG CLOCK WITH DATE FULL

It’s not a perfect match, but it’s in the same family, and has largely the same impact. The robin’s egg blue tone of the dial is impossible not to compare to the iconic color known world over as the signature shade of a certain prominent American jeweler. My experience of test driving the Calibre 473 revolved around the movement in a way that few of these test runs do, and that’s both a good and a bad thing. Calibre 473 offers all of the technical benefits of its automatic siblings, but removes the rotor, providing an unobstructed view of the movement itself, including a rear facing power reserve indicator. The centerpiece of the watch, and its namesake, is a new in-house movement based on the automatic Calibre 400. I won’t say I wish more brands did it, because then it would rob Oris of their place as King of the Pointer Date, but I’m glad they still make these when most brands have long since moved on from the practice.

BIG CLOCK WITH DATE FULL

Stripping a watch of full calendar functionality but leaving the pointer date allows for a clean, legible dial presentation that also enables the wearer to visualize, at a glance, how deep we are into a given month. It’s most commonly seen these days (and in earlier times, as well) in more complicated calendar watches that give you the day of the week and month in small apertures near the center of the dial. This method of reading the date, via a long hand that points (imagine that) to a date on the dial’s perimeter, is decidedly old fashioned.

The Big Crown Calibre 473 is the latest entry in a long line of watches Oris has produced with the pointer date complication. It’s affordable, easy to wear, and has an aesthetic appeal that’s been proven over the course of sixty years. It put Oris on the map for many enthusiasts entering the hobby at the beginning of a boom time for the entire industry, and remains a key watch in the vintage throwback category that virtually every brand has made an attempt to capitalize on over the last decade. I can remember when this watch was first reissued in a modern context, and it was something of a phenomenon. It’s possible that to an even wider swath of customers, the Divers 65 is the Oris signature watch. It’s a modern tool watch (with an integrated bracelet, well before the hype) that has specs making it competitive with virtually any well known diver, but thanks to the aforementioned bracelet it has something unique about it that can only be Oris. Is the Aquis Oris’s signature watch? I think for many collectors it might be. For as long as I can remember, this authorized dealer has had this kind of marketing in this specific place, always featuring an Aquis. They have other collections, sure, but they live and die with the Speedmaster.ĭoes Oris have a signature watch? I walk by an Oris authorized dealer in my neighborhood just about every day, and there’s a giant decal on the side of their building prominently featuring an Oris Aquis. Can you even imagine Omega without it? You can’t – it’s integral to the whole operation. The Omega Speedmaster, for example, is a perfect example of a signature watch. There’s a lot of talk among watch collectors of “signature watches.” Watches that essentially serve to define a brand, or even an entire category.

Big clock with date