Orient SuperKing Revival Captures That Seventies Feel Perfectly

One of the most interesting brands within the Seiko group is Orient. Many watch fans will know the traditional 3 star automatics, which are still plentiful on ebay and start at about £25 for a slightly rough example. The Worldtimers, especially with the graduated green or brown dials also look fantastic, although you might pay £100 to secure a decent example.

But those older Orient watches have quite basic movements inside – we have cleaned up a few and they’re fairly utilitarian inside. Like an older Seiko 5, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Orient have some very cool retro 70s style watches on their website right now, as the revival thing is really driving many watch companies to re-issue older models, or more commonly, update the old watch, make it wider, fit a modern machine-assembled movement in there, and do some marketing.

Here’s the spec on the re-issued SuperKing model, which comes in three different dial colours;

This is a revival of a 1970s era, popular diver style model “469135A”. Characteristic case shape with 4 nailed pins, rotating bezel, logos, and wrapped metal band. Every detail is carefully revived. It is ORIENT 41.7mm Sports mechanical watch with day and dates  Features an attractive see-through case back, which enhances the refined aesthetic.

The refined timepiece supports water resistance of 50 meters – says Orient, which is impressive.

Inside you get a modern automatic movement, which can be wound up, as well activated via wrist movement. We are guessing it’s based on the Seikio Presage 4R35 movement, but without seeing inside the SuperKing we don’t know. We love the day/date window, which is pure timeless Seiko design.

We found Sakura watches in Japan selling these watches at just under 200 euros. Orient are NOT officially imported into the UK, so be careful where you buy one from. Be lucky glam rockers!

 

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