ORIS – BIG CROWN 1917 LIMITED EDITION

It’s impossible to deny the heart-stopping feeling I experienced when Rolf Studer, the CEO of the Oris brand, gave me this new model. It is hard to restrain your emotions, even though journalists should always try to be impartial. But my love had bloomed for this treasured object delicately placed on one of the tables of the Oris at Baselworld. Its name? The Big Crown 1917 Limited Edition.

oris big crown 1917 limited edition closeup

The Big Crown 1917 Limited Edition was named after the first pilot’s replica watch designed by the replica watchmakers from Hölstein – a town in the Basel-Landschaft canton, in north-western Switzerland – in 1938 and called the Big Crown. Although Oris’ new replica watch borrows the Big Crown’s aesthetic features, it also takes inspiration from the style of a pocket replica watch made by the brand in the 1910s. The pocket replica watch features an engraving of the Blériot XI monoplane, built by Louis Blériot (1872-1936) in 1909, and on board which the French engineer crossed the Channel the same year. In short, the new Big Crown 1917 Limited Edition has forged very strong links with its ancestors and above all with the world of aviation.

The steel case, measuring 40mm in diameter – a perfectly unisex size, which is a good point in my book – has the same rounded sides as the vintage Oris pocket replica watch. It features a large, ribbed steel crown and a monopusher at 2 o’clock on the outside of the case, and which just needs to be pressed to set the time. The system was already featured on the Big Crown in 1938. The metal case has a solid, screwed back with the former OWC (Oris Replica Watch Company) logo, as well as the number of the piece, out of a total of 1917. It houses the Oris 732 calibre, based on the Sellita SW 200-1, an automatic mechanical movement driving the hour and minute functions while providing a power reserve of 38 hours.

oris big crown 1917 limited edition caseback

The dial on the Big Crown 1917 Limited Edition is decorated in a lightly grained, silver grey tone, and features an hour rim with large Arabic numerals coated in beige Super-LumiNova®. In the centre are two luminous, blued, openwork and leaf-shaped hands, identical to the ones found on the first pilot’s replica watches in the 20th century, displaying the hours and minutes.

This new replica watch made by Oris is available with a chocolate brown leather wrist protector, as well as a travel pouch with a “simple” second strap, also made of brown leather.

Price: 2 400 CHF

By Sharmila Bertin