I first came across this Oris BC3 Sportsman Day Date model when I was perusing the various Black Friday deals that Amazon had posted. Not only was it quite a mark down (more on that later), but I thought it was an interesting watch. I do think it has a bit of an identity crisis, though.
Why is that? Well, Oris has this listed as one of their Aviation models (owing due to the design’s origin in an earlier pilot watch), but for me, it has more of a dress watch feel. If nothing else, this would be a great watch for the office (from a looks standpoint).
I love the easy to read dial, the over-sized seconds hand, and how they’ve oriented the day and date display. Most watches will have this showing up at the 3 o’clock position, resulting in a somewhat unbalanced feel. Here, though, you have it stacked at the 6 o’clock position, enabling a very symmetric (left to right) look and feel.
Beating away inside the 42mm stainless steel case you have an in-house automatic (26 jewel) movement working away at 28,800 BPH. You also have an AR-coated sapphire crystal protecting the dial, and a mineral crystal display back allowing you to see that movement at work. With the strap (at 22mm), you’ve got three options – brown leather as shown here, black rubber or a stainless steel bracelet.
I chose the brown leather model to highlight as it had the best deal on Amazon, as mentioned at the top of the post. While the watch itself retails for almost $1200, Amazon has it on offer for under $650 (the other models are discounted as well, but hover north of $800). Given the pricing I’m founding around the web, this seems like a bargain – and leaves you some spare change to get a black leather band to turn it into a true dress watch.
