Orient Watches

Orient Watch: Intricate Craftsmanship and Style

As one of the most recognizable brands in Japan, Orient has a reputation for high-quality watches that radiate the brand’s intricate craftsmanship and unique style. Now operating under Seiko Epson, the brand continues to produce watches that are distinctively Orient. Depending on the model, the typical Orient watch price remains relatively tame. However, these watches get the same level of respect as some watches from higher-end brands.

Orient remains a well-known brand because of the outstanding value and quality of its mechanical watches, showcased in its rich collections of watches such as the Orient Star. The brand also never forgets its roots as it makes technological innovations — as showcased in some of the watches in the Orient Classic and Orient Revival collections.

How much is an Orient watch?

Orient Watch Collections

Currently, the company boasts four rich collections of timepieces: Classic, Contemporary, Sports, and Revival. They also have the Orient Star Collection whose origins date back to 1951. Whether you need something casual or dressy, Orient watches are diverse enough to cater to different styles and aesthetics — all while keeping that unique Orient touch.

Prices for the Orient Star: Distinctively Orient Timepieces

Orient first introduced the Orient Star in 1951, just a year after the brand’s official foundation. Up to this year, the Orient Star lives on as the blueprint for the brand’s Orient Star collection. These Orient men’s watches are distinctively Orient, showcasing the brand’s high-end finishes. The Orient Star logo also adorns the dial of these unique watches, and they also sport a power reserve indicator at 12 o'clock.

The Orient Star collection truly shines because of the exquisite and distinct features of the watches: skeleton and semi skeleton styles, retrogrades, power reserve indicators, GMT, and a style that never fades with time. Their domed crystals and onion crowns also provide an added vintage appeal to the Orient Star watches. With their elegant and timeless style, watches in this collection provide an excellent addition to any wardrobe. 

The Orient Star includes intricate skeletonized watches, making them interesting focal points and conversation starters. These Orient skeleton watches, such as the Orient Star Classic Skeleton WZ0041DX, are certainly iconic and provide complex visual details that are sure to impress. Orient Star Classic Skeletons cost around 1,700 USD to 2,300 USD, but they sure are worthy investments given their massive appeal.

The Orient Star collection also has its own Classic, Contemporary, and Sports styles, making it a diverse collection with many different styles and functions. They’re perfect for any occasion — formal events, everyday wear, and even outdoor activities such as running and diving.

Prices for the Orient Classic: Stylish and Time-Tested Timepieces 

When it comes to Orient men’s watches, the originals never go out of style. The Orient Classic collection features time-tested stylish pieces that are sure to look good on any occasion. The Orient Classic collection includes professional and sophisticated traditional designs that are certainly well-loved. You can never go wrong with the classics.

Orient Classic watches have a clean and sleek look to them, making them elegant and fashionable enough to be dressy watches. Most of the pieces in this collection feature domed crystals or open hearts, which add such interesting details to these clean-looking watches.

One of the highlights of the Classic collection is the Orient Classic Envoy Version 2 RA-AG0013S10A, which has a slightly domed mineral crystal and a vintage overall look with a subtle sunburst finish. To enhance its simple vintage design, however, it has an exhibition case back and an open heart that both showcase the watch’s impressive 22-jeweled F6T22 movement. At only $220 USD, this watch is a lovely option for watch enthusiasts.

Prices for the Orient Contemporary: Watches for the Modern Man

In contrast with the watches in the Classic collection that tend to stick with a more vintage aesthetic, the Orient Contemporary Classic watches provide a more modern twist to the classics. This collection contains a vast range of different designs from casual and fun to more formal and elegant. These watches mix in modern aspects with a vintage aesthetic, giving you the best of both worlds.

Like the Classic collection, the Orient Contemporary collection also features some Open Heart models for that added visual spice. There are also some models with a day-date display, as well as some watches with a multi-year calendar. Some Orient Contemporary watches have quartz movement, including some Orient chronograph watch models. Depending on the model, the prices range between $110 USD and $230 USD.

One of the highlights of the Orient Contemporary collection is the Orient Contemporary AC05002D FAC05002D0, a 41mm mechanical watch with an undeniably modern look. With its stainless steel case and band, it brings a nice contrast to its navy blue dial. It also has stylish silver hands with a barred design adorning the hour hand, as well as a date aperture to give it a contemporary look. To make the watch even more interesting, it also has a see-through case back, allowing you to view the watch’s beautiful mechanical movement. The watch is also sturdy and can easily handle light recreational swimming with a water resistance of 50m. This elegant timepiece sells at around $115 USD.

Prices for the Orient Sports: Pushing Boundaries in Form and Function

Aside from the regular Orient watches, the brand also offers a diverse array of tool watches. Included in the Orient Sports collection are sporty watches, dive watches, and pieces that resemble pilot’s watches. These watches are built to handle a more active lifestyle but can also make for great everyday watches for casual use.

There are several Orient chronograph watch models that are quartz-powered, and they come with three sub-dials. You may opt for a traditional 3-6-9 sub-dial layout or an interestingly unconventional 6-9-12 sub-dial layout. These multifunctional timepieces range between $110 USD and $170 USD.

Some of the Orient men’s watches in their Sports collection have an attractive large display, especially the Neptune and Kanno dive watches. They’re quite similar to the smaller models, but the cases of these watches measure up to 44mm in diameter. These large dive watches are priced between $220 and $510 USD. 

Another watch in the Sports collection with a large case is the Orient Enterprise, standing out among the rest with its stainless steel case that measures up to 45mm in diameter. With its bold and modern design, this sporty watch is an absolute show-stopper. Prices for the Orient Enterprise are around $190 USD to $230 USD.

Prices for the Orient Revival: Reviving Iconic Designs

In the celebration of the company’s 70th anniversary, the brand released two Orient Revival collections in 2020: the Weekly Auto Orient King Diver and the Retro Future Camera. The Revival collections reimagine some of the most iconic Orient watches and bring them back for patrons to fall in love with all over again. Like most Orient timepieces, watches in the Orient Revival collection boasts a sublime watchmaking finish and expertly crafted mechanical movements — all while being fairly affordable.

The Weekly Auto Orient King Diver first made its appearance in 1965 and served as the blueprint for many of the future Orient dive watches. Now, the anniversary version of the Weekly Auto Orient King Diver still retains aspects of the original but incorporates modern Orient innovations. Examples of the iconic aspects that the rebooted watches retain are the engraved case back, bar indices, arrow-shaped hour hands, an independent crown for the inner bezel, and day of the week displays at 6 o’clock. The modern innovations include the in-house caliber F6922 which provides impressive precision and a 40-hour power reserve. Although the Weekly Auto Orient King Diver Revival is not an ISO standard diver’s watch, it has a remarkable water-resistance of up to 200 meters. 

The Retro Future Camera collection made its debut in 2005, and it takes its name from its apparent resemblance to the classic mechanical rangefinder cameras that were popular in the 1950s. These watches have dials that mimic the aperture blades of camera lenses, and they also have bezels that resemble the aperture rings of mechanical cameras. One new feature that the Retro Future Camera Revival collection has is the exhibition case back that resembles a camera’s viewfinder. This unique style gives off the appearance of a mechanical camera on a mechanical watch.

The Retro Future Camera watches are sporty watches that have large hour and minute hands, small seconds dials at 6 o’clock, and an open heart display at 9 o’clock that shows the smooth mechanical movements within each watch. The brand only produced 2,300 pieces of these limited-edition Orient watches, and they are some must-have timepieces for any watch collector and enthusiast.

How much is an Orient watch from this limited-edition collection? Surprisingly, the prices for the Orient Revival collection only range from $420 USD to $580 USD. Both the Weekly Auto Orient King Diver and Retro Future Camera watches come with an Orient 70th anniversary box.

Prices for the Orient Sun and Moon: Fancy and Elegant Dress Watches

Some of the most outstanding Orient men’s watches are the Orient Sun and Moon watches, which are fascinating timepieces that are truly out of this world. For timepieces only around $250 USD, the Orient Sun and Moon watches show a lot more features than one could expect from other watches in this price range. 

The Orient Sun and Moon watches have a fully automatic movement with three features: a day sub-dial, a date window, and a sun and moon display that slowly transitions as the day goes by. Throughout the course of the day, the dial rotates and shows the sun and the moon displays depending on the time of the day. This provides a satisfying and extraordinary detail to the watch, comparable to the moon phase watches. All of these features come together to create remarkable timepieces that truly shine — and you don’t have to worry about breaking the bank.

The watches have a 40-hour power reserve and scratch-resistant sapphire crystals to protect the dials. As an additional feature, each watch has a see-through exhibition case back to maximize the interest that Sun and Moon pieces already have. Watches from the Orient Sun and Moon collection come in a variety of colors and styles to choose from, with all of them having the same attention to detail and faithfulness to the brand’s reputable quality. 

There are some Orient Sun and Moon watches that also stand out among others, such as the Orient Classic Limited RN-AS0004L. This limited-edition watch provides a deep contrast between its dark blue dial and rose gold-tone case, index markers, and Roman numerals. It also showcases an open aperture that gives an interesting visual point that’s easy on the eyes.  Despite only costing about $600 USD, this watch looks more expensive than it is — especially with its outstanding features and undying style.

Orient’s Milestones and Innovations

In 1950, Orient Watch was founded. They released their first mass-production watch, which was New Orient. After the New Orient, the brand produced the original Orient Star. They modeled and named these watches after the image of a shining star, aspiring to make the watch outshine its competition. 

The original Orient Star used the pre-war type movement. In 1957, however, Orient introduced the T-type center-second movement which overlays the center and fourth wheels. One of the earliest watches to use this new movement was the Orient Star Dynamic.

In 1958, Orient released the Royal Orient in their luxury line. The Royal Orient was the brand’s first practical device that featured water resistance specifications and had an N-type movement. 

In 1964, six years after the Royal Orient’s release, Orient introduced its first dive watch. This was during the rise of recreational diving, and it showcased Orient’s awareness of overseas trends. The brand also released a water-resistant timepiece with a world timer in that same year.

Orient introduced the Orient Fineness in 1967, which featured a caliber 3900 series movement. At the time, this watch was the thinnest self-winding watch with a day and date display. In the same year, the brand also introduced a dive watch with a 1,000 m water resistance. The Orient King Diver 1000 used a Swiss C.R.S. case and a soft inner case which contributes to the watch’s antimagnetic properties.

In 1976, Orient produced the Orient Touchtron, which was a digital watch with an LED display. It illuminated whenever the user would touch the case, although it tended to malfunction. The Orient Touchtron II lit up with the touch of a button and replaced the Touchtron.

The first Orient Skeleton watch made its appearance in 2014. It had sophisticated details, a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal glass, a 40-hour power reserve, and a water resistance of 10 bars. Its skeleton design highlighted the watch’s self-winding caliber 40S62 movement.

In 2017, the brand also introduced the Orient Star Mechanical Moon Phase. This impressive watch has a semi-skeleton design showing its caliber F7X62 movement. The pièce de résistance of the watch, however, is its unique moon phase display.

Orient's Iconic Watches

Orient Bambino

One of Orient’s most iconic watches is the Orient Bambino, a collection of elegant dress watches with a clean and sharp aesthetic. Similar to the Orient Classic, these watches follow a similar style but have a diverse set of distinct versions. The Bambino watches mostly cost less than $500 USD, making them affordable yet undeniably stylish choices for dress watches.

The Orient Bambino 5, one of the latest models in the collection, sports dotted seconds, printed hour indicators, and curved and leaf-shaped hands that highlight Orient’s attention to small but powerful details. These iconic Orient men’s watches get significant praise for their value, with good reviews flowing continuously even as the years pass.

Orient Kamasu

The Orient Kamasu is another iconic and praise-worthy watch from this sensational brand. Taking inspiration from the fearsome barracuda fish (Kamasu is the Japanese word for barracuda), the watch has some playful but sleek accents. The hands are sharp and pointed, with the hour hand sporting an arrowhead design. Additionally, the 12 o’clock markers are also triangular in shape. These sharp accents give off the impression of a barracuda’s teeth.

Kamasu watches have solid stainless steel oyster-style bracelets, scratch-resistant sapphire crystal glasses, and a 120-click unidirectional bezel. These sports watches also feature an F6922 mechanical movement and an impressive 200m water resistance.

Orient Mako

If you’re looking for a high-quality dive watch for shallow water diving and snorkeling, the Orient Mako is a viable choice. This iconic Orient watch is often compared to the Seiko SKX007, another affordable dive watch. With the standard Mako models costing no more than $300 USD, these dive watches are also budget-friendly.

The Mako has features that many users ask for, such as scratch-resistant sapphire crystal and stainless steel bracelets with solid end links. These watches also have a calendar function, a reliable 120-click bezel, and a caliber F6922 movement that allows hand-winding. Coupled with its improved functionality, the Orient Mako watches provide a casual yet stylish look.

History of Orient Watches

With a heritage built on reliability and craftsmanship, Orient has a rich history. The brand started as an independent company in 1950 under the name “Tama Keiki Company”. However, its origin dates as far back as 1901 when Shogoro Yoshida, the company’s founder, opened the "Yoshida Watch Shop", a wholesale shop in Tokyo, Japan. 

Yoshida began to expand his business in 1912 and renamed it “Toyo Tokei Manufacturing” — a company that originally produced gauges and table clocks. The company started manufacturing wristwatches in 1934. Toyo Tokei Manufacturing was successful during its run, but the dwindling Japanese economy after World War II caused the business to shut down in 1949.

The company reopened as the Tama Keiki Company in 1950. It received its current name — Orient Watch Company, Limited — the following year. This was the year that the company started producing the Orient Star. It remained one of Japan’s largest watch manufacturers until the 1970s. The brand survived the quartz crisis because of its traditional mechanical watches.

Seiko Epson became Orient’s majority shareholder in 2001, and in 2009, they fully acquired the company. Orient now remains as one of the Seiko Epson Corporation’s independent daughter companies.

Five Reasons to Get an Orient Watch

1. Orient watches are well-made and reliable.

Orient men’s watches and women’s watches all boast their reliable timekeeping even as the years progress. Depending on the model, they only gain a few seconds per day, ensuring that you’re always in sync and on time.

2 They won’t break the bank.

It’s no secret that Orient watches are affordable timekeeping pieces even despite their numerous perks and supreme quality. Many Orient watches cost no more than 300 USD, with some models even selling for as low as a hundred bucks. Finding affordable yet quality watches is a rare feat nowadays, but Orient is here to stay.

3. Orient watches showcase remarkable craftsmanship.

The brand takes pride in the sheer craftsmanship that they exhibit to produce their quality mechanical watches. Orient stays true to their time-tested standards and dedicates their efforts to demonstrate precision and great attention to detail. Craftsmanship has always been one of their main tenets, and this is exactly what you’ll get when you buy an Orient watch.

4. They have phenomenal designs.

Another reason why Orient holds influence is because of their unique designs that are sure to catch your interest. They also offer diverse collections of watches, featuring minimalistic designs and even ones that are more playful and quirky. From the Orient Classic to the Orient Revival, there’s an Orient watch for everyone.

5. Features, features, and more features!

One of the most important things to remember about Orient watches is that some of their watches offer a lot of features for such an affordable price. Open apertures, skeleton designs, calendar functions, and even moon phases — Orient watches don’t skimp on features.

Expertly Crafted Orient Watches

Whether you’re looking to get an Orient skeleton watch, a chronograph, or just want to stick to the classics, you can guarantee that it’s well-made and expertly crafted. From their dozens of features to their precision and reliability, you can’t go wrong with these iconic watches. Also, to top it all off, you don’t need to say goodbye to your savings if you want to get your hands on quality watches made by Orient.