Little Oris handwinding watch. Any info?
Found this little Oris at an antique store. Does anyone have any info on it?
15 comments
·
Sort by
Sort by
Based on the generic case shape and painted dial, it may be one of those frankenwatches from India that use handpainted dials with "Oris" or "Camy" etc. and old HMT or other basic movements.
Based on the generic case shape and painted dial, it may be one of those frankenwatches from India that use handpainted dials with "Oris" or "Camy" etc. and old HMT or other basic movements.
Seriously?
Take the back off as the movement numbers tell the story. They have serial numbers that are apparently tracked with Myoris or something like that.
Take the back off as the movement numbers tell the story. They have serial numbers that are apparently tracked with Myoris or something like that.
I can't take the case back off. There's no notches for a caseback wrench, and no way to pry it off that I can see.
Based on the generic case shape and painted dial, it may be one of those frankenwatches from India that use handpainted dials with "Oris" or "Camy" etc. and old HMT or other basic movements.
I'm seeing these types of watches on eBay. Yup, they say new hands, straps, etc.
Seriously?
Etsy and Ebay have many of these watches that are sometimes referred to as "Mumbai specials" because they usually come from India - the better ones use old FHF (Fabrique d’Horlogerie de Fontainemelon) calibers 96 or 97 - which are old 17 jewel hand wind Swiss movements (not very accurate and inexpensive in their day) and they will sometimes carve "ORIS" or "CAMY" on a bridge of the movement and stamp or etch an Oris or Camy logo on the generic caseback. They also re-case old Seiko movements with painted Seiko dials. The worst ones use old HMT movements. The "tell" for most of these are the painted dials that often are very colorful:
Many sellers are up front about being "refurbished" and having FHF movements... but the Camy or Oris origin is not true:
Other types of these watches use standard dials (e.g., sunburst with applied 12 and 6) and paint on a logo - this "Seiko" uses the modern "5" logo rather than the correct shield "5" logo used on all but the newest Seikos:
and it has a dial suspiciously similar to this "Oris":
This shop is pumping those "rare" "Oris" watches out in every color:
Seriously?
See also these YT videos:
https://youtu.be/G_m4b3OBEMI
https://youtu.be/tPtCsfqaEUc
If you got a good price for it, it is a handsome watch and it probably has an actual 17 jewel Swiss movement (most likely the FHF ST96), so enjoy the watch for what it is... a fun little hand wound mechanical watch - I probably paid more for my Timex MK1 Mechanical that has similar quality 😀
For many of the Seiko franken watches, the dial has no legs and is glued to a plastic movement holder in order to work with various movements, so just be aware that there may be minor issues like this related to servicing your "Oris".
Take the back off as the movement numbers tell the story. They have serial numbers that are apparently tracked with Myoris or something like that.
I think it's an Incabloc one piece case that you have to go in through the crystal (like an old Benrus Three Star) to service the movement
I think it's an Incabloc one piece case that you have to go in through the crystal (like an old Benrus Three Star) to service the movement
If that's the case, it would be unlikely to come from India since they use cases with regular casebacks like the ones in the videos - can you post a photo of the back?
I can't take the case back off. There's no notches for a caseback wrench, and no way to pry it off that I can see.
Take the back off as the movement numbers tell the story. They have serial numbers that are apparently tracked with Myoris or something like that.
So it looks like it's a Swiss movement. It doesn't say HMT or Oris. It's running reasonably accurate.
It looks identical to the FHF ST96 in the videos 👍
It looks like other Crunchers have found similar watches - apparently the FHF ST96 was a "standard" caliber used by various watch companies similar to today's ETA and Sellita movements, and FHF was eventually absorbed into ETA.
https://www.watchcrunch.com/Galactica/posts/does-anyone-know-the-history-of-these-70s-17-jewel-swiss-watches-30215
I can't add more to this thread that wasn't already said, particularly by Chris @AFChris (the red ORIS in his post is one of two I bought early in my collecting), but if you learned something then it wasn't a waste. Consider it an initiation. 😉