Brand Directory: Ollech & Wajs

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Ollech & Wajs began in 1956, in Zurich. Albert Wajs decided to partner with his friend Joseph Ollech to open a watch shop. At that time they distributed Breitling and Omega brands, before launching their own brand: OWZ Ollech & Wajs Zürich. Production was assembled on-site no. 55 Stocker Strasse, on the ground floor of a beautiful bourgeois building. Albert Wajs, decided to specialize in the assembly of reliable and accurate watches, with movements such as Dùbois Depraz, Landeron and Valjoux, alongside cases in stainless steel by Maison Etienne, they used Tritium hands and created functional and legible dials. Ollech & Wajs manufactured under different brands, including OWZ, Helsa and Piz Palu, before focusing on OW in the early 1960s. 

They were the first to release a diving watch, tested at a depth of 1000 meters with a graduated rotating bezel, which allowed divers to calculate the decompression time.

Their watches were used by American soldiers and proved popular with entire regiments ordering hundreds of OW Chronographs. Mr Von Braun, actually wore an OW watch while working at NASA.