OSMUND Buy

OSMUND · Malmö · since 2014

A house of two benches

Osmund iron was the bloom the mediaeval Swedish forges sold by the barrel — good steel, made in small quantity, by people who had no way of making more of it.

Two watchmakers work here and they build 220 wristwatches a year between them. That figure is a ceiling rather than a target: it is what two people can machine, finish, time and sign without any of those four words quietly turning into something else.

Founded
2014, Malmö
Benches
Two, one watchmaker each
Built a year
220
Watches in the catalogue
One
The Osmund 38 Inside the workshop
The Osmund 38. The house has made one watch since 2014 and has no plans for a second. Shown at about three times life size.

Four surfaces, one light

Every finish on the watch is an abrasive cutting in one direction. Move the light and each one answers in the geometry of its own grain. This is the part of a watch that is judged by eye and it is the reason the page moves at all.

Sunburst

Turned against a rotating wheel, so the grain runs outward from the centre. The highlight is a wedge and it swings round as you scroll.

Perlage

Overlapping circles ground into the mainplate. Each circle holds its own highlight, so the field lights in sequence rather than all at once.

Straight grain

Drawn under a belt in one direction. It throws a single hard bar of light, and when the light runs along the grain it throws nothing.

Bead blast

Struck with fine glass bead. No grain direction at all, so it never throws a highlight — it only gets brighter. It is here as the control.

Caliber OS.24

Hand-wound, 24 jewels, 3 Hz, 62 hours from a full wind. The mainplate is perlaged, the bridges are grained in one direction and the screws are heated to 290 °C until they turn blue. That blue is a temperature rather than a decision, which is why it is the only one on the watch.

Power reserve
62 hours
Frequency
3 Hz, 21,600 vph
Rate, five positions
-2 to +6 s per day
The going train

The catalogue is one watch

Same case, same caliber, same price. What changes is the way the dial is cut, and therefore what it does in a room with one window — which is the only choice the house asks you to make.

Sunburst steel

OS38-SB

Turned against a rotating abrasive wheel. The grain runs outward from the centre, so the highlight is a wedge that swings round the dial as you move.

Bead-blast anthracite

OS38-BA

Struck with fine glass bead at low pressure. The surface has no grain direction at all, so it never throws a highlight — it only gets brighter or darker.

Engine-turned slate

OS38-ET

Cut on a rose engine in concentric grooves. Each groove holds its own small highlight, so the whole dial lights in rings rather than as one sweep.

The three dials, side by side Specification and price

What happens at the bench

Everything below is done in one room in Malmö by the two people who sign the sheet in the box.

The case is machined here

Bar stock in at one end of the room, cased watches out at the other. Six operations, a batch of forty at a time, and the bevel at the end of it is cut by hand against a wheel because no machine in this building can do it.

The movement is finished by hand

The plate is perlaged circle by circle and the bridges are drawn in one direction under a belt. None of it makes the watch keep better time. All of it is what you are looking at when you look through the back.

Every watch is timed and signed

Five positions over four days, adjusted until the spread closes to within eight seconds. The sheet that comes in the box is your movement, measured, not a specimen of the model.

It comes back here to be serviced

Every five years, to the same two benches, for as long as the house exists. A watch that cannot be opened by the people who closed it is a disposable object with a long warranty.

How the case is made Delivery, warranty and service

The Osmund 38

The watch itself — every measured dimension, the three dials, the straps, and what it costs.

Specification and price

€3,180

The Osmund 38, including VAT. In stock, 5 to 7 weeks.

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