| Model: | Chronograph V92 |
| Reference: | OW92 |
| Gender: | Uni-sex |
| Year: | 1963 |
| Material: | stainless steel |
| Dial Color: | Black |
| Dimensions: | 38 mm |
| Watch Movement: | manual |
| Bracelet/Strap: | stainless steel |
| Box/Paper: | Handmade Leather Travel Pouch IF ordered at WRIST ICONS |
| Condition: | Good vintage condition |
WRIST ICONS is proud to present you classic 1970s Ollech Wajs Precision Chronograph with the coveted Valjoux 92 caliber as used by many other high quality brands of the 1950 and 1960s. What’s not to love on this beautiful black dialed chronograph?
This beautiful piece is characterized by a thin and elegant rotating bezel and an “inverted Panda” dial, right out of the sixties, it embodies perfectly the 60s lifestyle of La Dolce Vita, from Rome to Paris, with a detour by Zurich's winter nights. The Valjoux 92 movement demonstrates an extraordinary accuracy and a manufacturing quality that is a must-have among aficionados. It is extremely rare on the market because of the high production costs, and thus seldom used at the time.
We belief this is the second execution since the first execution had a caseback inscription stating 10ATM instead of 20ATM.
In the 1950s Albert J. Wajs founded the company as a supplier of stainless steel bracelets. Ollech & Wajs dates back to 1956 when in Zurich a young Albert Wajs went into business with his friend Joseph Ollech to open a luxury watch shop. Watches were offered by mail order from Switzerland through magazine ads to customers in the United States and UK. In the early years, Ollech & Wajs distributed watches from the likes of Breitling and Omega, but it wasn’t long before they also decided to establish their own brand: OWZ (Ollech & Wajs Zürich).
Founder Albert Wajs wanted to specialize in the creation of reliable and accurate mechanical watches such as the Breitling’s and Omega’s he was selling in his luxury store. He chose movements only with the most solid reputation on the market, from ETA, Dubois Dépraz, and Valjoux. He also insisted on the most robust stainless-steel cases which he sourced from Maison Étienne. The highly legible and functional dials were sourced from the Frères Lender du Locle, while the Tritium needles were sourced from Universo in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
The company specialized in automatic and manual-wind mechanical military and dive watches. They were sold in PX's on US military bases during the 1960s. The company's M 65 military watch was popular with US soldiers. The Vietnam War era marked an all-time high in sales. Breitling Navitimer stock was used to produce Ollech & Wajs chronometer-style watches, called “Aviation”. During the first season of the 1970s British television series The Professionals, actors Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins wore what appear to be Ollech & Wajs Caribbean 1000 wristwatches.
O&W finally ended production of OW models in the early 1980s, although business continued with the Aviation chronographs. In the 1990s, the company resumed under the name A.I. Wajs. and subsequently OW. New models were successfully introduced, such as the M4 diving watch and the Mirage Valjoux 7750 chronograph.
In 2006 a collector of OW became the distributor of the brand for the French market, and in 2017, Albert J. Wajs passed the company over to him.
The brand has been re-introduced in 2017 by a new owner, building on the old legacy.
Produced during the 1950s and 60s, the Valjoux 92 manual-winding chronograph movement was very popular and used across the board by titans of watchmaking like Patek Philippe, Rolex and especially Heuer.
As with all of our pre-owned watches this watch comes with a full 12 month WRIST ICONS warranty that will be invoked from the day of purchase. Further: everything is cleaned before sending the items. We will service the watch after purchase to make sure the watch arrives in perfect condition.