Official press release.
LUCERNE, Switzerland—The Lucerne watch company ochs und junior presents the 36mm annual calendar in grade 5 titanium and Rhodium plated. ochs und junior manufactures watches designed by the watchmaker and scientist Dr. Ludwig Oechslin.
The right size is an essential part of your perfect watch – so naturally, it’s part of customizing your ochs und junior. 36mm is a diameter we have always offered for Ludwig Oechslin’s annual calendar, moon phase, date and two time zones watches – the watches which Oechslin has designed for the dependable ETA 2824-2 base movement. Some of the earliest ochs und junior prototypes were executed in 36mm, as some of the images in our 8. December 2009 and 1. February 2010 blog posts illustrate. And over the years, we have manufactured these functions in 36mm for a handful of clients upon special request. However, until now, we had never shown a production ochs und junior in this diameter on our website.
We manufactured the 36mm annual calendar pictured in this post to serve as a reference. All of its dial components have been manufactured in Rhodium plated, and the case is made out of grade 5 titanium. We have placed the watch on a textile strap with a Kevlar core, which features a grade 5 titanium “loop” buckle.
The exact watch in these photographs is available for purchase in the annual calendar Store.
Selecting your size
Each of the three sizes we offer (36mm, 39mm and 42mm) for the annual calendar, moon phase, date and two time zones watches can be comfortably and stylishly worn with any wrist size. The right diameter for you is really a question of preference, not a question of wrist size.
Ludwig Oechslin has a 180mm wrist and prefers the 39mm size, Beat Weinmann has a 165mm wrist and prefers the 42mm size, and the writer has a 170mm wrist and prefers the 36mm size.
If you have access to a printer and some scissors, you can test all three sizes on your own wrist. The following PDF has life-size cutouts of each size on a single page:
When printing, please make sure the page is set to print at 100%. By default, some PDF programs use a different setting, like “scale to fit a single page.” To confirm your printout is correct, you can measure the line which says “Check if this is 36mm.”
You can also compare the following photographs. Sandra Flück, our watchmaker, lent her 157mm wrist for these photos. The strap Flück is wearing is made of vegetable-tanned suede leather (color: Enzian).
Customization
All of the customization options that are available for the 39mm and 42mm editions are also available for 36mm. However, our customizer tool does not feature 36mm as an option. To order your watch in 36mm, we recommend designing your watch using the 39mm setting in the customizer. Once you are finished, you can directly tell cofounder Beat Weinmann that you would like to have your watch manufactured in 36mm. We manufacture about 130 watches per year, and each order is personally handled by Weinmann.
It is also possible for us to create 36mm mockups for you in Photoshop. This involves some extra work, so we ask for a confirmed order before helping you decide the last details with these custom mockups. There is no additional charge for ordering your ochs und junior in 36mm, and as mentioned above, all of Oechslin’s ETA-2824-2 watches can be had in this size (annual calendar, moon phase, date, two time zones).
Technical details for 36mm
The lugs are exactly the same width apart as on the 39mm and 42mm editions (22mm), so the 36mm size can use all of the same straps as our other watches. The water resistance is the same as for the 39mm and 42mm editions (100m). Like the cases for the 39mm and 42mm editions, the lugs do not extend beyond the radius of the bezel, which makes for a comfortable and “true to size” fit. The weight of the 36mm edition is:
The perpetual calendar and day/night
We offer the day/night starting in 40mm, and the perpetual calendar starting in 42mm. These are the minimum possible diameters for these models based upon their functions and base movements (the UN-320 and UN-118, respectively). Upon special request we have manufactured larger perpetual calendars and day/nights, including a 43mm day/night, and even a 47mm perpetual calendar (!). And now, with this post, we have presented our reference watch for 36mm, the minimum possible diameter for Oechslin’s ETA 2824-2 collection. We look forward to learning your wish!