Royal Orient?

[I-B]

Hi folks,
could one (or more) of you folks brief me on "Royal Orient? I discovered their existance while surfing the interweb, but little info can be found. The prices seem to be above GS. Are they worth it? Any info is good info....
Thanks!









(webpix)

[Domo]

None of the watches in your post contain that movement shot in your post BTW. See - Orient used to have 4 lineups: Orient, Orient Star, Orient Star Royal, and Royal Orient. They ditched Orient Star Royal and some became Orient Stars and others became Royal Orients. Most Royal Orients during that time were quite high-endish watches, being either manual wind adjusted and running a cal. 48A60, or automatic chronometer spec running a cal. 8870. Nowdays, the Royal Orient lineup is becoming less prestigious, more analoguous to the older Orient Star Royal lineup, which was Orient star movements at a slightly more accurate spec and a bit more decoration. All Royal Orients and Orient Stars now (since the discontinuation of the cal.88700, cal.32B00, among others with the exception of the 48A60 but I'm sure its days are numbered too) run a variation of the exact same base movement, cal.40xx0. Changing the middle letter denotes the decoration/regulation level and the second-last number the complications (Orient make a lot of day/date/retrograde/pr/etc options). Of course prices have gone down too (a proper Royal Orient used to be around $4,500, but now they're around $2-$2,500) and I assume this is a choice to position Orient as more or a 'mid tier' watch brand which is a shame really because they had a time when they made lots of really cool looking chronographs and such but yeah if you're shopping Orient nowadays best to stick to Orient Star for bang-for-your-buck as that's where they're REALLY excelling. The new Royal Orients just don't seem like a good value proposition considering the base movement (which although it is based on an Orient Star ebauche, it itself is based on an Orient ebauche, so we're not talking high-end by any means anymore).

If you can find a used or NOS Royal Orient with the cal.88700, then by all means go for it - They're still not on Grand Seiko level either in accuracy or technical accomplishment, but they're not far behind and more on a level of The Citizen automatics. The movement is more beautiful than either though and the bracelets are usually the complex multi-link variety. They definitly should NOT be more expensive than (automatic) Grand Seikos though, but with stocks running super thin by now (these were discontinued about a year ago so I'm not even sure if there's any new stock left?) who knows maybe the price is going up?

[I-B]

Thanks for the insight Domo! I live in a country where Orient is not sold, so if i want one, i should buy it online. I have a Mako wich pleases me, and i am looking at the handsome Orient star retrograde for a while now, but i had never heard of Royal Orient & co...

[Domo]

Thanks for the insight Domo! I live in a country where Orient is not sold, so if i want one, i should buy it online. I have a Mako wich pleases me, and i am looking at the handsome Orient star retrograde for a while now, but i had never heard of Royal Orient & co...

Nothing wrong with an Orient Star retrograde (buy WHY when they've just released a brand new OS GMT WZ0071DJ ? They ditched the fugly second crown, added a proper (not 'faux' this time) 5 link bracelet and covered it with awesome)) but I wouldn't get the Royal Orient version for a whopping $1,000 more. It even comes with an extra helping of bland. The OS retrograde has lume, those fancy sculpted lugs and a nicer dial than the Royal Orient WE0011JD.

Buy this



Or maybe this



But not this



But try and buy this, if you can find this



Or maybe it's safe to just settle for this



(thanks jason_recliner)

[I-B]

...maybe this



Or maybe it's safe to just settle for this



(thanks jason_recliner)

I fancy this model



And this GS, i would only go for a quartz GS, but no date, cos i have a pet peeve with the datechange of the 9F Any news on a updated GS quartz movement btw?

[Domo]

Thinking of a no-date Grand Seiko quartz, eh? Here's what I call a live feed from "A day in the life of Domo"

[I-B]

Thinking of a no-date Grand Seiko quartz, eh? Here's what I call a live feed from "A day in the life of Domo"

Poor Domo...let me help you there, since it's my b-day today i allow you to donate the thing to me. I will stop doing these nasty labtestinGS on it like it seems to be used to, and i will love it till the end of my day's.

[Domo]

Poor Domo...let me help you there, since it's my b-day today i allow you to donate the thing to me. I will stop doing these nasty labtestinGS on it like it seems to be used to, and i will love it till the end of my day's.

H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y ! ! !

Unfortunately for you I'm midway through testing Grand Seikos against Rolexes so I don't have any to spare......TBH I can probably conclude the experiment months ahead of schedule if you saw these results I'm already getting

[I-B]

H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y ! ! !

Unfortunately for you I'm midway through testing Grand Seikos against Rolexes so I don't have any to spare......TBH I can probably conclude the experiment months ahead of schedule if you saw these results I'm already getting

i'm glad it's watchtesting and not a methlab

[FuzzyB]

Poor Domo...let me help you there, since it's my b-day today i allow you to donate the thing to me. I will stop doing these nasty labtestinGS on it like it seems to be used to, and i will love it till the end of my day's.

Happy birthday, I-B! Does this mean the Wempe is officially on your wrist?