A Review of the Oris Big Crown Pointer Date Watch

Oris watches represent excellent Swiss manufacturing and classic styling at prices that are affordable to most. I am a fan of Oris watches and I like their current collection of Big Crown Pointer Date watches, although there are one or two things about the collection that I have mild criticism of.

The date display was first used on Oris watches in 1938, and although one or two other manufacturers employ a date display on some of their watches, the date display is almost an Oris trademark. Using this feature in your Big Crown collection is a beautiful fusion of the date and pointer crown.

All Big Crown Oris watches come with an automatic movement with a screw-down case back and clear mineral crystal. Personally, I like being able to see the inner workings of a watches movement.

The Oris Big Crown Pointer Date watch case comes in four sizes: 40mm, 36mm, 32mm and 28.5mm. It is constructed of stainless steel and comes with a fluted bezel; the bezel can optionally come in rose gold.

Two different dials are available: silver or black guilloché. Design features are different for each dial. Set against the silver guilloché dial, there are rose gold Arabic numerals at the 12, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 positions with rose gold odd hour markers. The hour, minute, second, and date hands are also rose gold, with the hour and minute hands in Superluminova material. The black dial of the Oris Big Pointer watch comes with Superluminova Arabic numerals for each hour and all hands are stainless steel colored.

I really like the black dial, more than the silver guilloche. My taste in watches is very simple; I like my stainless steel watches to be just that. I don’t like the mix of gold and silver and really wish Oris had designed a third dial design for him on the Big Crown; one that used Superluminova Arabic numerals and stainless steel hands on a silver guilloché dial. Having said that, I can easily live with the rose gold finish on the silver version of the dial.

Depending on the particular size and model, the Oris Big Crown Pointer Date watch comes with either 25 or 17 jewels.

There are four different straps to complement the Oris Big Pointer watch; black leather, medium brown leather, stainless steel, and rose gold-plated stainless steel. Like I said before, I don’t do gold/silver combinations and I also don’t think the brown leather strap would suit the look of the silver or black dials.

Finally, let’s talk about the pointer date hand. Either gold or silver in color, the date indicator hand comes with a red curved end that points to the date on the outer edge of the dial. However, in the 40mm case, the end piece of the date indicator is slightly curved, forming a quarter circle, while in the smaller cases the end piece is in the shape of a horseshoe. I much prefer the horseshoe shape as it highlights the date more clearly in my opinion. I don’t know why Oris chose to use a different shape on the larger case, but he wishes he hadn’t.

I really like the Oris Big Crown Pointer Date watch. My go-to piece from this collection would be the 40mm silver guilloché case and black leather strap, despite my reservations about using rose gold hour markers. The large case wears the large crown better.