Watchlords

A year or two ago, Orient Star released their current GMT in two dials, black/blue. Yes, it is an Aqua Terra look on the dial, but nifty none the less in my opinion. It is worth noting up front that this is not a "true" GMT, but that would be unusual at this price point according to my admittedly limited understanding of the issue.

Anyhow, so I bought a blue one, the WZ0071DJ:



It is worth noting that the AR on these is fabulous, at the time it was their brand new latest/greatest AR and something they touted heavily. And with good reason, IMO, it is almost spooky:



While I like the blue, I ended up with it because I missed out on a limited run (unnumbered) gray dial (WZ0081DJ) with green GMT hand that I really liked, an opinion apparently shared by others as the run sold out nearly immediately:



I was a bit disappointed, but content to live with the blue dial version.

Nosing around the Orient Star catalog today, I noticed that they have done another run of the WZ0081DJ again only available through Orient Star Prestige Shops, no Yodobashi/Bic Camera/et al.

The strap is genuine croc fwiw.

Just wanted to give a heads up to anyone who might have missed out on one of these first time around, they are still available from a few vendors at a street price range of $800-1k USD at current exchange rate.

Here are some images thanks to a uhrforum review, since the Orient product pictures suck as usual.





















I'm heading back to the US in a week or so, it will take a supreme act of will to do so not in the company of one of these.

Love the lime on grey. Damned shame it isn't on bracelet.

I have an idea...you buy the LE grey and sell me your blue dial?

Great pics of a very good looking watch.

jason_recliner wrote:Great pics of a very good looking watch.

Not to take anything away from the photographer's quite evident skills, but the AR on this model is really astounding - IME, you almost kind of have to try to take a picture that looks like it has a crystal in place.

Have found it online...for $1200 USD. Quite a premium for this LE.

biglove wrote:Have found it online...for $1200 USD. Quite a premium for this LE.

Yeah, they seem to be pretty popular here in Japan and as they dwindle, the last ones tend to get spendy in this sort of situation.

I did score one today for a somewhat more reasonable price, some portion of that likely simply due to being in-country. They actually did start to write it up at higher price until I showed them their internet sale price.

No pics yet because the shop has to get from another location, take delivery tomorrow.

But I did get to try on this Movado quartz chrono:

I had the blue dial GMT, and a nice watch it was, too. Robot's right, it's like the crystal disappears with the AR coating. Alas, it wears a little too big for my tastes; if Orient had made this in 40mm, it would have been a home run.

conjurer wrote:I had the blue dial GMT, and a nice watch it was, too. Robot's right, it's like the crystal disappears with the AR coating. Alas, it wears a little too big for my tastes; if Orient had made this in 40mm, it would have been a home run.

I'll second that, it definitely is large-ish. FWIW, my feeling on that seems to come more from the height than the width although it is undoubtedly generous in both dimensions 41.5w x 13.7h according to the literature.

robatsu wrote:

conjurer wrote:I had the blue dial GMT, and a nice watch it was, too. Robot's right, it's like the crystal disappears with the AR coating. Alas, it wears a little too big for my tastes; if Orient had made this in 40mm, it would have been a home run.

I'll second that, it definitely is large-ish. FWIW, my feeling on that seems to come more from the height than the width although it is undoubtedly generous in both dimensions 41.5w x 13.7h according to the literature.

Interestingly, I had thought that this GMT used the same case as the very fine OS world time (which I also own) but came in slightly larger. I agree in the height off the wrist; however, with the very thin bezel, it looks larger is diameter, too.

And I have just ordered one from Katsu Higuchi, a great start to 2017

Pete26 wrote:And I have just ordered one from Katsu Higuchi, a great start to 2017

I'll be interested to hear how that plays out. The status of this model is a little foggy to me - Orient is showing it again in their catalog after a break of about 2 years.

So I got really excited because I missed out on the last run of these and started looking for one.

My research indicated to me that there was a burst of sales in 2016 but at the moment nearly unavailable anywhere in Japan. I just picked up one of the three I found on Rakuten, other Japanese online shopping aggregators that are pretty comprehensive showed none.

Hopefully it is just a production/distribution pause and they plan on producing more - that Orient still shows it in their catalog is encouraging. The blue ones are quite fetching, but the WZ0081DJ is the pick of the litter IMO.

robatsu wrote:

Pete26 wrote:And I have just ordered one from Katsu Higuchi, a great start to 2017

I'll be interested to hear how that plays out. The status of this model is a little foggy to me - Orient is showing it again in their catalog after a break of about 2 years.

So I got really excited because I missed out on the last run of these and started looking for one.

My research indicated to me that there was a burst of sales in 2016 but at the moment nearly unavailable anywhere in Japan. I just picked up one of the three I found on Rakuten, other Japanese online shopping aggregators that are pretty comprehensive showed none.

Hopefully it is just a production/distribution pause and they plan on producing more - that Orient still shows it in their catalog is encouraging. The blue ones are quite fetching, but the WZ0081DJ is the pick of the litter IMO.

He said he has it in stock and sending it today.

Wow, that's great.

robatsu wrote:Wow, that's great.

Well done. Excellent photographs.

I really like the photo of the power reserve. Stunning dials.

spanky1 wrote:

robatsu wrote:Wow, that's great.

Well done. Excellent photographs.

I'm assuming you are referring to the WZ0081DJ photos. Yes, they are super, but they aren't mine, but rather from a review on Uhrforum.