News · Edox

Edox revives its 1961 double case back for a 265-piece Delfin

The Delfin The Original 1961 Date Automatic Limited Edition brings back a shock solution older than modern anti-shock systems, in black or white dials at US$1,870.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 4 min read · 19 August 2026

• Edox has built a limited edition around the double case back its Delfin collection introduced in 1961, where a second reinforced back shields the movement from shocks.
• The 41 millimetre steel case runs 12.7 millimetres tall, weighs 168 grams and keeps the brand's double O-ring screw-down crown for 200 metres of water resistance.
• Two references are offered, black dial and white dial, each limited to 265 pieces at US$1,870 excluding tax with an extra leather strap in the box.

Every brand with an archive is currently mining its 1970s, and most of them are pulling out the same things: a barrel case, an integrated bracelet, a dial with a texture on it. What separates a reissue worth looking at from a costume is whether the original had an engineering idea in it, rather than just a silhouette. Edox has one, it dates back further than the seventies, and it has been dusted off for the Delfin The Original 1961 Date Automatic Limited Edition.

The idea underneath: two case backs, not one

The thing Edox is drawing on here is the double case back, which the brand says first appeared on its Delfin collection of 1961. A second, reinforced back sits behind the first, and its job is to take the shocks that would otherwise reach the movement. It is a solution from an era before anti-shock systems were standardised and marketed, and it is the reason the Delfin name carries the words "The Water Champion" on the dial rather than something about depth ratings.

The other piece of Edox engineering that survives is the double O-ring on the crown, which the brand developed to raise the pressure the seal can take. Two seals in series is a slower, fiddlier thing to assemble than one, and it is exactly the sort of detail that gets quietly value-engineered out of most modern watches, so its presence on a limited edition rather than in the archive is worth noting.

Forty-one millimetres of case that is mostly shoulder

The case is stainless steel, 41 millimetres across and 12.7 millimetres tall, with a shape that spreads much wider than a round 41 would. Broad polished flanks curve out past the dial and then sweep back in towards the strap, so the watch looks larger head-on and considerably slimmer in profile than the numbers suggest. It weighs 168 grams, which is a real presence on the wrist and tells you the steel has not been hollowed out anywhere.

The lug opening is 20 millimetres, which is unusually restrained for a case this wide and is the choice that keeps the whole thing from reading as a slab. Sapphire covers the front, the crown screws down, and water resistance is 200 metres, or 20 atmospheres in Edox's own reckoning, which for a watch of this shape means it can be swum in without ceremony.

Two dials, and one of them is doing more work

The limited edition comes in two references. The 80143-3M-NIN carries a black dial and the 80143-3M-AIN a white one, and they behave quite differently under the same case. Black turns the applied baton markers and the polished hands into the only bright things in the frame, so the watch reads graphic and a bit severe. White does the opposite, flattening the contrast and letting the case shape dominate, which is the version that looks most like a 1970s object rather than a modern watch quoting one. Luminescent material sits on the hands and indices, and there is a date at three.

The criticism worth aiming at this whole genre is that seventies reissues usually load the dial with texture to distract from a case that is only approximately right. Edox has done the reverse. There is no guilloche, no waffle, no fumé, just markers and hands on a flat field, which takes some nerve when every competitor is selling pattern.

Sellita underneath, and one figure Edox has not published

The movement is what Edox calls its Caliber 80, based on the Sellita SW 200, an automatic with a date. It is the workhorse of the Swiss industry and there is no shame in it: it is serviceable anywhere in the world, it is well understood, and it is the reason a watch with this much case machining can sit where it does on price rather than several thousand dollars higher.

Edox does not state a power reserve for the calibre, which is a gap rather than a mystery, and the sort of thing a brand tends to fill in once the first owners start asking.

Edox Delfin The Original 1961 Date Automatic Limited Edition pricing and availability

Both references are limited to 265 pieces and are listed on Edox's own store at US$1,870.00 excluding tax. Each comes in a special box that includes an additional leather strap. Edox's specification table lists the watch on a rubber strap with a pin buckle, while the brand's own product photography shows it fitted to a steel bracelet, so it is worth confirming which you are buying before you order. No Australian price or local distribution has been announced.

Two hundred and sixty-five is a strange number for a limited edition, small enough to be genuinely scarce and odd enough that it is presumably counting something. What it buys is the more interesting question, and the answer is a case shape that almost nobody else is making at this money, wrapped around a movement that any watchmaker in the country can open. That combination, an unusual exterior and an entirely ordinary interior, is the most sensible way to build a watch like this, and far more brands should be doing it.