I was shopping recently for a dress watch with mechanical movement. The first inclination, as many shoppers would have, was to look for a Swiss made watch.
The checklist for the watch I was trying to find would include the following:
Budget: less than $400 USD.
Technical specifications: mechanical or automatic movement, hacking mechanism, date and swipe second, at the minimum. Any extra feature like power reserve and the day display, or even COSC mechanism, would be welcomed bonuses. But who would sell a power reserve or COSC in my budget?
As for design, it’s all subjective, but I liked a simple dial, as classic as possible with a tint of modernity in it.
The list of choices was pretty limited, as someone would expect for this price range: for me, these criteria were met by the following Swiss made: I liked the new Hamilton Valiant silver dial, the new Tissot Couturier (even though I found it a little bit on the bulky side on my wrist), Tissot Le Locle, Steinhart Marine, Christopher Ward Henley. With the exception of Tissot Le Locle all these watches were closer to $400 than to $300.
But then I checked the Orient USA web site and found out about the limited edition 60th Anniversary. It was a surprise to my delight. Design wise it caught my attention immediately. Classic, curved crystal, beautifully polished stainless steel case, perfectly sized crown with logo, very nice black leather strap with buckle and logo on it, very well balanced on all design aspects. It resembled the new Tissot Visodate, even though the Visodate was not in my price range.
When I saw it comes with power reserve indicator and hacking mechanism I thought we have a winner. What I liked about the power reserve indicator, aside from it’s function to let me know how much reserve is left, was its unobtrusive placement on the dial (unlike for example the Tissot Le Locle with power reserve, or the Hamilton Viewmatic models) and also the nice details indicating the hours left, very well matched with the overall design of the watch. The hand written model name on the dial is exquisite, giving a retro note to the watch.
On top of this, the generous discounts from Orient Watch USA sealed the deal for me. Under $300 for a power reserve, limited edition, beautifully crafted and packed watch, accuracy around -6/+6 seconds per day (I found out that later on my own watch, close to COSC specifications), it’s definitely an unbeatable price for a beautiful piece of art.
I can only highly recommend the Orient 60th Anniversary for all the reasons I mentioned above. The luckier ones who can get one while they are still available will enjoy every single piece of this watch.
Florin F.