Ochs und junior AG is a

Swiss watch Swiss made is a label or marking used to indicate that a product was made on the territory of Switzerland. It is also a geographical indication protected under different Swiss and international laws and treaties. According to the Swiss Federal Ac ...

manufacturer based in

La Chaux-de-Fonds La Chaux-de-Fonds () is a Swiss city in the canton of Neuchâtel. It is located in the Jura mountains at an altitude of 1000 m, a few kilometers south of the French border. After Geneva, Lausanne and Fribourg, it is the fourth largest city loc ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, which is specialised on producing mechanical

wristwatches A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is designed to keep a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is designed to be worn around the wrist, attached by ...

. The company was founded in 2006 by

Ludwig Oechslin Ludwig Oechslin (born February 10, 1952) is a Swiss watchmaker, designer and inventor. Life Ludwig Oechslin was born in Gabicce Mare. In 1972, he embarked upon a degree course in archaeology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, going on to ...

, a universal scholar and master

watchmaker A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now factory-made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were master craftsmen who built watches, including all their par ...

and Kurt König, Managing Director of Embassy and Beat Weinmann. The

Ulysse Nardin Ulysse Nardin SA is a Swiss luxury watchmaking company founded in 1846 in Le Locle, Switzerland. The company became known for manufacturing highly accurate marine chronometers and complicated timepieces used by over 50 of the world's navies fro ...

watch company became a shareholder of Ochs und junior AG in 2012; today ochs und junior is a pure family business.

Collection

The focus of the collection is on astronomical complications (i.e. moon and sun displays) and calendar displays, including

perpetual Perpetual, meaning "eternal", may refer to: Christianity * Perpetual curacy, a type of Christian priesthood in Anglicanism * Perpetual virginity of Mary, one of the four Marian dogmas in Catholicism Finance *Perpetual bond, a bond that pays ...

and annual calendars. In contrast to the classic watch industry, the main emphasis is not on creating complicated solutions, but rather on keeping the solutions as simple as possible. As an example, Ochs und junior AG's moon phase display is accurate to 3478.27 years (after that the display will theoretically deviate from reality by one day) – making it one of the most accurate moon phase displays in the world. This is achieved using an epicyclic gear train consisting of only five components, including the dial. Build on basic movements bought in from Swiss watch companies

ETA Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...

, the final products are created by adding specially-developed

modules Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a sy ...

. All other components, such as caseings and straps, are also designed in-house. At the end of 2020, ochs und junior introduced qualified design models for the first time, which cannot be configured and are thus offered at a lower price, including a perpetual calendar. Although Ochs und junior AG handle the research, development and construction design themselves, the individual components used ( gearwheels, case, crown, straps, dial, etc.) are manufactured by highly-specialized external subcontractors – with full transparency. The watches are assembled by Ochs und junior AG's own watchmakers in their workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds, which also serves as a salesroom.

Design

The watches are designed strictly according to their function. For example, the dials themselves form an integral part of the movement construction. Due to this design philosophy and the high-precision manufacturing process involved, no further finishing, such as polishing the casing, is carried out. Each watch can be individually designed by the customer via a

configurator Configurators, also known as choice boards, design systems, toolkits, or co-design platforms, are responsible for guiding the user through the configuration process. Different variations are represented, visualized, assessed and priced which star ...

on the company's website. – making every watch unique. In general, neither special lettering nor the company logo are used. The only exception is the embossing of the logo on the inside of the leather straps.

Company size and sales channels

With currently sales of approximately 130 watches per year (as of December 2018), Ochs und junior AG is a niche manufacturer. The products are sold exclusively through the company's headquarters in La Chaux-de-Fonds – both on site or via the Internet. Beat Weinmann, CEO and co-founder for many years, who represented the interface between production, planning, communication, sales and service, left the company at the end of November 2019. In March 2020, the company moved its headquarters from Lucerne to La Chaux-de-Fonds and appointed Marc Bernhardt as the new managing director on an interim basis. Since the end of 2020, ochs und junior has once again been purely owned by Dr Ludwig Oechslin and Prof Kornelia Imesch and is run as a family business.{{Cite web, last=, first=, date=, title=WatchAround issue 52 dec/jan 2020/21 (print or behind paywall; in German or French), url=https://www.watch-around.swiss, url-status=live, archive-url=, archive-date=, access-date=, website=

Pricing

Depending on the model and configuration concerned, sales prices range between approx. CHF 6,000 and CHF 21,600 – and can be even higher, if special requests are accommodated. This puts Ochs und Junior AG watches in the upper price range of the luxury watch market segment.

References

External links

Watches That Follow the Stars (The New York Times)

Website of Ochs und junior

Dreinreden erwünscht (in German; Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ))

Ochs Und Junior and The Aesthetics Of Anti-Aesthetics (Hodinkee)
Watch manufacturing companies of Switzerland Swiss companies established in 2006 Swiss watch brands