Most complications are built by addition. Ludwig Oechslin's reputation rests on the opposite instinct: take a function the industry solves with dozens of levers and springs, and re-derive it as a handful of gears. The Anno, the serial-production annual calendar Ochs und Junior has offered since 2023, is one of the cleanest expressions of that method. For 2026 it returns in a new execution, the Anno Sandblasted, introduced via Monochrome Watches on 19 June: the mechanics are unchanged, the dial goes monochrome, and the case comes in two sizes of grade 5 titanium.
Three parts, one crown
A conventional annual calendar tracks 30- and 31-day months with a stack of levers, springs and jumpers. Oechslin spent three years reducing the function to a gear system with three additional moving parts: a month disk driven through a five-tooth, double-toothed cog, a collar with two fingers bonded to the hour rod, and a weekday disk. The dial itself serves as a module in the gear train, and the perimeter date ring closes the loop. The date, month and weekday indications are inscribed directly on the front side of the functional parts. The brand's own summary is that an annual calendar cannot be reduced further.
The practical consequences are the point. Fewer parts mean fewer interactions and easier servicing, and the gear layout lets every calendar function be set through the crown, in either direction, with no pushers or case correctors. The mechanism models every month except February, so the date is adjusted once a year, on 1 March.
Reading it
There is no printed text on the dial. The 30-plus-1 holes around the perimeter show the date, a ring of 12 holes above the centre shows the month, and 7 holes below show the weekday, both of the smaller rings rotating counterclockwise. The weekday dots double as a day and night indicator: one visible dot means day, two mean night. The date holes are spaced two minutes apart and are exactly as wide as the minute hand, so the perimeter also reads as a minute track. Indices mark the even hours only, with a double index at 12. It looks abstract in photographs and becomes legible quickly on the wrist, which is the trade Oechslin has always asked his owners to make.
The sandblasted execution
Earlier serial Annos leaned on colour. This one removes it. The dial is sandblasted and rhodium-plated, the markers and the hour and minute hands are finished in dark patina, and the date ring, month wheel and weekday wheel are rhodium-plated to match. The single accent is the central seconds hand, coated with a small piece of yellow gold leaf. The two-part case is grade 5 titanium in 39mm or 42mm, both 11mm tall including the crystal, deliberately industrial and left with visible machining marks. The screw-down titanium crown gives 100m of water resistance, and the weights are 45 grams for the 39mm and 51 grams for the 42mm before the strap.
A deliberately mundane base
The base movement is the ETA 2824-2, automatic, 28,800vph, 38 hours of reserve. Ochs und Junior has never pretended otherwise, and the choice is consistent with the design brief: the value sits in the calendar module and the case work, not in decorated bridges nobody can see behind the solid back. The strap is black Ecopell calfskin, handmade by Sabina Brägger in four sizes, on a titanium pin buckle. Each watch is assembled and regulated at the workshop in La Chaux-de-Fonds and carries a two-year warranty.
Ordering
Sales are direct through ochsundjunior.swiss, with a 50 percent deposit and delivery quoted at roughly twelve weeks. The price is CHF 5,177 export, or CHF 5,596 including 8.1 percent Swiss VAT, identical for both sizes. One detail worth noting for a brand built on made-to-order colour: the Anno Sandblasted is not customisable. Like the rest of the ochs line, it is sold as a finished design, exactly as Oechslin and co-designer Cajetana drew it. For a watch whose entire argument is that nothing more should be added, that reads less like a restriction than a summary.
