About Orient: Orient Watch was formally established in July 13th, 1950 in Tokyo. However, the history of Orient Watch really dates back to 1901, when Shogoro Yoshida, the founder of Orient, opened a wholesale watch store in Ueno, Japan. Orient Watch has always focused on mechanical watches, primarily automatic watches with its own in-house automatic movements Orient was once part of the "Big Three" watch companies in Japan along with Citizen and Seiko. In the 70s, when mechanical watch companies faced hardship from the mass introduction of inexpensive quartz watches, Citizen and Seiko took the path of mass producing quartz watches, Orient stuck with what it did best, making mechanical watches. Today, Seiko owns a controlling stake in Orient. Orient, however, continues to make its own mechanical movements. For its quartz models, it uses Seiko's quartz movements. What sets Orient apart from other watch companies is really the fact that Orient has always been focusing on making its mechanical movements better and more reliable. It is unusual today to find a watch company that makes its own movement selling watches at prices offered by Orient. Most of the watch companies that do make in-house movements are big name specialized watch companies such as Patek Philippe whose watches ranges from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. To find a specialized watch company that uses in-house movements selling its watches at prices that are affordable to most people is truly refreshing.
