Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. The Ochs und Junior Calendario Quattro Anni, Oechslin’s Four-Year Calendar Watch
Only one correction every leap year, Ludwig Oechslin’s four-year calendar bridges the gap between annual and perpetual calendars with radical mechanical simplicity.
Ochs und Junior, the brand founded by mastermind watchmaker Dr Ludwig Oechslin, is celebrating its twentieth anniversary with the release of a remarkable, highly efficient calendar watch. Dr Oechslin’s talent for tackling complications with ingenious solutions using as few components as possible, and his minimalist, Bauhaus industrial design style are clearly at work in the new Calendario Quattro Anni (CQA). Sitting between the complexity of his perpetual calendar and the practicality of his annual calendar, the CQA only needs one adjustment every four years.
Ludwig Oechslin’s (1952) lifelong pursuit of delivering “maximum function with minimal means” is perfectly illustrated by his perpetual calendar, automatically tracking the leap year cycle with just nine additional parts. The Calendario Quattro Anni is a very satisfying compromise between a sophisticated, fully autonomous QP (accounts for months with 28, 30 and 31 days, leap years and is correct for 100 years) and a practical annual calendar (accounts for months with 30 or 31 days, is correct for 1 year, but needs correcting at the end of February). The CQA, as its name suggests, is correct for 4 years, accounts for months with 28, 30 and 31 days, and only needs to be corrected manually during leap years, advancing the calendar from 29 February to 1 March.
True to the brand’s radical minimalism, the deceptively simple display belies the mechanism’s ingenuity. The circular-brushed OJ blue dial uses holes to indicate the different functions. The date is represented by 30 small square apertures, highlighted by an orange marker. What’s more, the squares are spaced at one-minute intervals, doubling as minute and second indices. For months with 31 days, the “31” is stacked in the upper part of the longer rectangular aperture for the first day of the following month.
Inside the date ring is an inner circle of 12 smaller square apertures representing the months, also indicated by an orange marker. Time is indicated by simple baton-style hour and minute hands and six indices, both with a white gold treatment and rough sandblasted surfaces, complemented by an orange seconds hand.
To pull off this incredibly clever calendar watch, the ETA 2824-2 automatic base is equipped with a reworked Maltese cross to control how many days are assigned to each month and a special switching wheel with three teeth to calculate how many extra jumps the date has to make at the end of a month. The third key component is a set of partially meshed gears that engage when needed. In layman’s terms, the watch mechanically counts the length of each month and jumps over wrong dates, so they never appear on the dial.
In hallmark Ochs und Junior style, the two-part 40mm titanium case, with a height of 11mm (including the sapphire crystal) and 100m water-resistance, reveals industrial machining traces. Weighing just 65 grams, including the strap and buckle, the watch is paired with a dark blue Ecopell leather strap and a titanium pin buckle.
The Calendario Quattro Anni retails for CHF 7,460 (incl. VAT) / CHF 6,900 (export). It can be purchased online at ochsundjunior.swiss with a 50% prepayment. Orders placed now will be delivered in early October 2026.
