How It Started

A new year, in fact a new decade has just begun. Outside it's raining
cats and dogs (maybe even cows, by the looks of it). This gets me in the mood
for reminiscing, how it all started… my interest in Orient watches, that is.

Collecting watches is usually a hobby one picks up as a grown up, when
fascination with mechanics (or history, or design, whatever it is that drives
one into watches) is met with sufficient income. For me this hobby did not
start with Orients… I must have had at least a dozen other watches before
getting my first Orient, a vintage
Chrono-ace.

It was actually much later that my renewed interest in the brand brought
up distant childhood memories of my first real watch, even before the
ubiquitous Casio calculator… yep, that was an Orient, given to me by my dad when
I was around 10 years old or a little later – and if memory serves me right, it
was his watch that he gave me once my wrist was large enough to accept.

Large wrist or not, it was a massive piece for a kid. I remember the
heft of its steel case very well. While watches were quite small back then,
compared to today's case sizes, to me it seemed big enough.

One other thing I remember well, is the lume. The thing had some serious
lume on it. I'd stay up well after lights-out just to watch that Orient shine
in the dark in blue and green (markers and hands were different shades). That
image, in fact, must have burned deep into my mind, as it kept coming in dreams
years after. Yes, it's true: I'd dream of watches. Weird, wonderful complicated
ones with plenty of buttons and functions.

So it came to be that memories of my old Orient crossed paths with this
new hobby. I like many other watch brands of course, but keep a special place
for Orient.

And now, that it's not just a new year that is starting, but it's
actually Orient's 70^th anniversary, I wonder: what new models will
2020 bring? I guess we'll have to wait and see! Stick around and keep following
the blog, it will surely be interesting!