Orient Owner's Club

[jalind]

Little know outside Japan and the Pacific rim is Orient Watch Company, Ltd. They are Japan's #2 watch maker, not very far behind Seiko which is clearly #1 in japan. It's not about production volume or sales revenue, it's about the quality of their product and the respect they have in the world of horology. Orient, like Seiko, is one of the very few watch companies in the world that designs and makes their mechanical movements in-house, which classifies them as a true "manufacture". The overwhelming majority of watch companies use movements from the very few companies that make them, and then assemble them with dials, hands and cases unique to the watch company.

Orient Power Reserve WV0021EZ:
Housed in a case with a retro art-deco design it has Orient's in-house 46J50 23 jewel 21.6kbph automatic that provides a seconds subdial, date subdial and power reserve subdial showing hours remaining on the mainspring. The retro bead style bracelet has solid links with a butterfly deployant closure. Crystal is very thick mineral glass. The dial, hands and case work belie the low street price of these making them a superb value when they appeared about fifteen years ago. Variants included several different dial colors, gold plated, and two-tone gold/silver finishes. and a slightly less expensive version using a 21 jewel movement from their 46 family with central seconds and date window just above the six. Orient's in-house 46 family of movements have been long-time work-horses noted for long-term reliability and durability.



John

[jalind]

Orient Star GMT
(WZ0071DJ; JDM only)
22j, 21.6 kbph 40P63 automatic with hand-wind and hacking



This was a JDM only (Japanese Domestic Market) Orient Star. That means Orient never exported it from Japan. Those who wanted one had to find a Japanese dealer willing to sell and ship to them. Rakuten Global is one of the places to find these dealers, along with the well-known Japanese sellers Higuchi-Inc and Seiya. As with Seiko and Miyota, Orient has been gradually updating their movement line with new calibers that have hand-wind and hacking. Orient Star Orient's mid-tier and prestige watch line. For many years Orient had three tiers, each of which spanned a relatively wide range of price points. The basic Orient, mid-tier prestige Orient Star, and high-end luxury Royal Orient. The Royal Orient line was dropped by them a couple years ago and the Orient Star expanded in price point.

Orient in general is noted for exceptionally well finished watches, even at the lowest price points. It truly shows on these JDM Orient Star with the case work, bracelet and dial. The dial work is intricate blend of subtle finish pattern and 3-D depth with the sub-dial, hour indices and dauphine style hands, and the AR coating on the underside of the sapphire crystal makes it disappear completely under most lighting.



John

[Fast Bill]

I came across Orient's Titanium Dive watch - I'll post pics later but it's great. A beast but light and great too. Good quality mechanicals and underrated IMHO