Back in 1884, Christian Ruefli-Flury decided to make a special birthday gift for his beloved wife Pauline’s 25th birthday. He crafted a pocket watch. She was delighted and convinced him to start his own watch company. Naturally, he listened to her (don’t we all? 😊), and a new watch brand was born. He named it EDOX, which means “measuring time” in ancient Greek.
Today, 140 years later, Edox remains one of the few remaining family-owned Swiss watchmakers. Over the last fifty years, Edox has been heavily involved in motorsport. A glance at their history shows that as early as 1963, Edox was the official timing partner of Autocross. More recently, they were the official timing partner of the World Rally Championship (2009–2013), a partnership that inspired the well-known Chronorally chronograph series. They also served as the official timing partner of the Dakar Rally (2012–2016) and the FIA World Rallycross Championship (2019–2021). Between 2016 and 2017, Edox was also an official premium partner of the Sauber F1 Team, and since 2022, they have been the official timing partner of BMW M Motorsport.
Today, Edox is also known for its highly water-resistant timepieces. For example, I own an Edox Chronooffshore-1 Carbon automatic chronograph with 500 meters of water resistance – quite remarkable for a chronograph watch. Despite all this, I must admit that Edox, at least in our region, is not widely recognized as a desirable brand. I’d even say it’s one of the most underrated brands out there. But I’ll get back to that later.
To mark its 140th anniversary this year, Edox decided to launch a special limited-edition watch dedicated to the occasion – one that reflects its strong connection to motorsport. The brand chose to reissue the iconic Sportsman chronograph, originally developed in the late 1960s.
So, what I have here today is the new Sportsman, released in March 2024, limited to 600 pieces, available in two dial color combinations – grey and blue. For reference, you can see below a photo of the original Sportsman from 1972, alongside official render images of the two reissued models. Since I don’t own an original version, I found the best photo I could online – it's not mine. The render images are from the official Edox website.
I can say that it took just one look for me to decide – this watch had to be mine. The beautiful combination of a vintage look with a touch of modern design instantly won me over. The only question left was, of course, the dial color. My first choice was naturally the blue one, but with each additional look, the grey version became more and more appealing – and in the end, it won! I can’t really say why, as I usually lean heavily toward blue dials.
I don’t know how familiar you are with the Edox brand, but it’s quite common to see big discounts on their watches across various distributors. So, my first task was to check where I could get the best price. And I was genuinely surprised to see that for this watch – which has an official retail price of €3,600 in the EU – there were hardly any discounts available. The best offer I found was just 10%.
In the end, I reached out to Mark from SeriousWatches.com to ask if I could get the watch through them, even though it wasn’t listed on their website. He checked with Edox about availability and, just a few minutes later, confirmed that a few pieces were still in stock. Since SeriousWatches also offers trade-ins, we quickly agreed on which of my existing watches I would sacrifice to make room for the new Edox. I shipped them to the Netherlands, and just a few days later, the Edox arrived.
Based on my experience with Edox, they usually don’t pay much attention to packaging. Typically, you get a rather “basic” small plastic box – far from impressive. So I was quite curious (and a bit anxious) to see what Edox would do for an anniversary limited edition watch.
Well, I can’t say they did nothing… but in reality, they did almost nothing.
The standard plastic box is placed inside a larger cardboard box, which includes space for an additional leather strap. And that’s not all – the box also features official BMW M branding and includes a small booklet with basic information about the watch, Edox’s history, and its connection to motorsport. The only truly “exclusive” element is that the booklet has the individual serial number of the watch printed on it.
Ironically – and this is almost funny – I have an Edox watch winder, and it came in a much nicer box than this special anniversary edition watch.
Let me now focus on the watch itself. As you can see, it comes with a mesh bracelet and a racing-style brown leather strap with a deployant clasp. I’ll be completely honest with you – this is probably the worst possible bracelet/strap combination for my personal taste. Among all types of bracelets, mesh is by far my least favorite. And when it comes to leather straps, I would never choose a racing style. I really dislike those perforated holes in the strap.
The bracelet itself is quite standard and easy to size. The clasp also offers three micro-adjustment positions. I was surprised that I only had to remove two links to make it fit my 19 cm wrist – which means this watch and bracelet combination isn’t factory-ready for wrists larger than about 21 cm.
Nowadays, when many watches are offered with more than one strap or bracelet, it’s quite common that both come with quick-release spring bars, or at least a strap-changing tool is included. In this case, that’s only partially true. The leather strap has quick-release lugs, while the bracelet does not – it uses standard ones. Fortunately, the mesh bracelet doesn’t have end links, and the holes in the links are large enough that the lugs are easy to access, so changing the bracelet isn’t difficult. However, as you surely know, you still need a tool to remove the bracelet – and that tool is not included. A small, yet important oversight by Edox. Do they really believe that the average user will visit a watchmaker every time they want to swap between the bracelet and the strap?
Even though I don’t like mesh bracelets or racing straps, I must admit that both are extremely well made – soft, flexible, and very comfortable. At first, I was sure I’d have to look for alternative strap options. But after a week of continuous wear with both, I no longer feel the need to change anything. Both strap options were clearly chosen with care and match the vintage sport character of the watch surprisingly well. Honestly, I never imagined I’d say something like this about these two types of straps!
If the straps were a surprise to me, what can I say about the dial? I honestly can’t define its true color – but it’s definitely not the light grey you see in the official render images. In real life, the color shifts between grey and brown, and in certain lighting conditions, it even appears almost black.
As you can see, the overall dial design closely follows the original version, replicating nearly every detail. Still, I did notice several differences. The most noticeable one is the minute totalizer – on the original, it’s outlined with alternating red and white stripes, while on the reissue, it features three colored stripes representing BMW M Motorsport. The second difference is a small dot above the hour marker at 6 o’clock, which isn’t present on the vintage version. The last one is the typography of the “Swiss Made” text and the presence of a "T" on both sides of it in the original – a designation that indicates the use of tritium for illumination. Naturally, this has been changed in the reissue.
All the hands are remarkably similar to the original, though not identical. The most obvious difference is the length of the chronograph seconds hand, which is longer on the new version.
For the sake of transparency, I should add that many different color combinations and slight design variations of the Sportsman were released throughout the 1970s and 1980s – including versions with a tachymeter scale either inside or outside the dial. However, the particular watch I’m using for comparison is a good representative of its era and clearly served as the main inspiration for this reissue.
I know it’s hard to see, but the dial has a sunray finish radiating from the center. If you look closely, you can spot how the sunray pattern of the dial continues into the lightly brushed finish of the case – a very subtle but beautifully executed detail. On the inner ring, there’s a brushed silver tachymeter scale, which adds another layer of depth and contrast.
Everything is finished very nicely, and unfortunately, pictures just don’t do justice to the real beauty of these details. When the dial shows its proper grey tone – instead of the brownish hue you see in this photo – all those sunray effects on the dial and case become even more attractive. I did try to take a better photo, but I have to admit my photography skills just aren’t up to the task.
The stainless steel case retains the same shape as the original, but here we encounter the first major update – the size has been increased from 37 mm to 41 mm. An excellent decision in my opinion: large enough to suit modern tastes, yet still small enough to preserve its vintage soul.
Naturally, the plastic crystal from the original has been replaced with a sapphire one. The sapphire glass is domed – which looks great, but makes photographing the watch a real challenge. Due to the domed shape, the total thickness of the watch is nearly 17 mm. However, since a significant portion of that height comes from the glass itself, the watch doesn’t feel bulky on the wrist.
The crown is, of course, signed and screw-down. But what really caught my attention is the fact that the chronograph pushers are not screw-down – despite the watch being rated for 300 meters of water resistance! That’s an impressive depth rating even for a diver, let alone for a chronograph. I honestly can’t recall another chronograph with such water resistance and pushers that aren’t screwed in. That said, I still wouldn’t dare to operate the chronograph underwater...
The caseback is sapphire glass, offering a clear view of the automatic bi-compax chronograph movement – the Sellita SW510 BH, rebranded here as the Edox 082. Like all Sellita SW5xx calibers, this one is based on the well-known Valjoux/ETA 7750 family. As far as I understand, the only difference between the SW510 and the Edox 082 is the rotor engraving.This is also the most significant technical difference compared to the original watch, which was powered by the hand-wound Valjoux 7733 chronograph movement.
It’s worth pointing out that the Sellita SW510 BH includes a date complication at 6 o’clock – however, the Sportsman does not feature a date display. Presumably, this was done to maintain historical accuracy and visual balance with the original model. I fully support this decision. One small side effect is that the crown still has a “dummy” first position, which would normally be used for date setting.
According to Sellita’s specifications, the movement offers a 62-hour power reserve – though I haven’t tested that myself.
But I did check the accuracy. The watch runs at +2 seconds per day in one position, +5 in another, +8 in a third, and +10 seconds in three other positions – resulting in an overall daily average of +8 seconds while worn on the wrist 24/7. Not bad, but there’s definitely room for improvement through fine-tuning.
All hands and indexes are illuminated. At first glance, the lume looks great (as shown in the first photo), but in reality, the second photo gives a more accurate representation of what you actually see at night. So, not quite as perfect as it first appears. The lume does last for a long time, but the hands are barely visible, while the indexes remain much clearer. It seems the hands are simply too thin to hold enough Super-LumiNova for stronger brightness.
Now, let’s take a look at how this watch fits on my wrist. As I already mentioned, the case diameter is 41 mm (excluding the crown and pushers), but I haven’t yet revealed the lug-to-lug (L2L) measurement – it’s just 45.5 mm! At first, I was concerned this might actually be too small for my wrist, but it turned out the watch wears extremely comfortably.
I took quite a few photos in different lighting conditions to give you a better sense of the dial’s color variations. I also experimented with different strap settings – some of which ended up being a bit too tight – just to show how the watch looks and feels in various setups.
At the end, let me return to the topic of price. €3,600 for a Swiss-made chronograph is, by today’s standards, quite normal. And to be fair, the overall quality of this watch supports that price point. However – for Edox, and the way the brand is generally perceived (at least in our region) – this is expensive. In fact, I believe this might be the most expensive Edox currently in regular production.
So the main questions are: can Edox, as a brand, justify a €3,600 price tag? And why does Edox still hold such a low value rating among watch enthusiasts? Is the unusual discounting strategy part of the problem – or simply a consequence of the brand’s image?
I’m not here to make any definitive claims, but I’d love to hear your thoughts. As for me, I’ll simply say:
“Dear Edox Sportsman, welcome to my collection – may your older and bigger brother, the Chronooffshore-1 Carbon, keep you good company. You’ll be staying with me for quite a long time.”
And once again, a big thank you to Mark from SeriousWatches for the quick response and the willingness to arrange a trade – helping me improve my collection with this special piece.
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