Jag vet inte om det här kan vara av intresse men jag läste det här på Quora som (fyra år gammalt) svar på frågan: ”Are Orient watches good”:
”I’ve been collecting watches for over thirty years. There’s no way to say this without sounding like I’m bragging, but sincerely that is not my intention. I just wanted to point out a good example of my view on Orient watches by noting that right next to my 22,000 dollar Audemars Piguet Royal Oak watch in my watch winder is my 159 dollar Orient Dive Watch. It gets the same respect from me as does the AP.
For the record, I’m not wealthy, but I’ve always had a knack for spotting trends before they start and, as far as watches are concerned, when I spot an upcoming trend I’ll buy watches I think are going to be trendy and then sell them for a handsome profit when the trend peaks. I use the money I make to finance my watch collecting.
A little background now about a Japanese company known as Orient Watches. Years ago I read an article in a business journal profiling the Orient Watch Co. As a long time collector, the more I read, the more impressed I became. Some of this is inside watch industry info, but I’ll try to make it more understandable.
In the article, I learned that Orient designs and makes all their movements in house (a movement is the mechanical gears and springs inside a watch that power it) Of the 104 different watch manufacturers currently operating in Switzerland, only a handful of the top-tier watchmakers make their own movements. The rest utilize movements made by the company ETA, a company that makes only watch movements.
ETA makes fine, in fact, top-notch movements. But when you spend 5,000 dollars on a Cartier watch, I think you’d be disappointed to know the watch was powered by the same ETA movement that a lower end, no-name 300 dollar watch used.
To sum up the rest of what I learned from the article was that Orient places as its top priority into making their movements more efficient and accurate, and improving the overall quality of their watches, even if doing so increases the cost of manufacturing the watch and slows production. In a world where the corporate models seem more and more geared towards speeding production while lowering production costs, even if this means the quality of the products suffer, it was refreshing to see there was a company that didn’t just follow the crowd.
The article also contained a picture of one of Orients top sellers, a dive watch. I was first struck by the fact that the watch looked nothing like a Rolex Submariner. I should point out that virtually every dive watch I have ever seen looked so similar to the Submariner they could have been twins.
The Orient dive watch had a large, well marked bezel that could easily be worked by a diver wearing gloves, and the dial of the watch was bright yellow, not as a fashion statement, but because, as anyone who has ever gone diving knows, the deeper you go the harder it is to distinguish colors. But on the Orient, the sharp contrast of the watch hands and the dial would make it easy to see even in murky water.
By the time I was done reading the article I wanted an Orient dive watch. My hope was that it would cost less than 1000 dollars, which I didn’t expect would be the case. A new Rolex Submariner sells for just about 14,000 dollars.
After I finished reading, I went online to try to find an Orient dealer. I found one in short order, saw a picture of the dive watch I was interested in, clicked on it, then nearly fell off my chair. It took a minute for me to realize I hadn’t made a mistake, but I didn’t, it was true, the price of the dive watch was 159 dollars. I immediately ordered one and was surprised that it came in what is known as a, “presentation box”, which is a fancy, well crafted wooden box similar to what you get with a high-end Swiss watch.
At present, I own three Orient Watches, and I just ordered a forth, a modified dive watch that is entirely flat-back. It is one hot looking watch.
In the name of full disclosure there is something I feel I need to point out. Anyone reading this is probably wondering why anyone in their right mind would spend more than 10,000 dollars on a watch when they can get one that very well may do, and perform just as well as the 10,000 watch for less than 160 dollars. The best thing I can probably do is provide another example. My Orient dive watch is about two years old. If I tried to sell it, there would probably be no takers. If it did sell, I can’t imagine it would go for more than twenty dollars. The last high-end watch I sold was a Rolex Daytona that I purchased less than a year earlier. I paid more than 10,000 for the watch, but when I sold it, I sold it for 1,500 dollars more than I paid for it.
Over the last thirty-years I have bought and sold dozens of hi-end watches. The worst I ever did was break even. I just listed a JLC Reverso today that I’ve had for two years. I listed it for 800 dollars more than I paid for it, and I have no doubt it will sell in less than two weeks.
But like I said earlier, there are no class distinctions in my watch holders, I love them all the same.
One more thing: friends who know that, not only am I into watches, but also that I make serious money buying and selling them often ask me for help so they can acquire a high quality, high-end watch. I always tell them first: “If you want to wear a three-thousand dollar watch, spend 150 dollars and buy an Orient”.