If you go
looking for vintage Orients, particularly Chronoace
models, you would occasionally come across unique pieces where the case appears
to be made of stone or marble. What are these? And why would anyone manufacture
a watch case out of stone?
First of
all, a stone case actually has its advantages. An obvious one would be aesthetics. Check out the pictures, and you'll see some of these are truly beautiful. Stone (or marble, or other similar materials) has a very different
appearance from metal, of course. You get different textures and colors, and
these provide a perfect match to some Chronoace versions like the Mexican
and Jaguar
Focus dials.
Some of
these watches likely made use of reconstituted rock, where the raw material is
ground to fine grains and then glued back together using resin. This allows for
the addition of colors and a more consistent look, while still maintaining
much of the character of stone.
Stone is
generally also lighter than steel, though not by much. If you examine how these
cases are constructed, you'll see the back of the case is made of steel – only
the top material is different. Of course the movement itself also stays the
same. So the difference in weight here is probably quite negligible.
While some
stones are softer than steel, using marble or reconstituted stone can actually
provide better scratch resistance. And where a more natural finish is left, the stone would also camouflage any scratches more effectively.
There are more reasons for not producing watch
cases out of stone. The material itself is less durable and more fragile than
steel. And then the manufacturing process isn’t just more expensive than
working with metal, it is also quite different. A production line that is built
around casting and finishing steel isn’t easily transformed into working with
rocks.
Now, these
kinds of watches were clearly not made in large quantities, and very likely not
even produced in Orient’s main manufacturing facilities. It is not clear
whether they were marketed as original Orients at all, or whether they were
some kind of an aftermarket product.
I could
find any original Orient catalogs featuring stone-case Chronoaces. I did, however, note such watches that were sold as new, i.e., these weren’t mods added on top of a used watch. Therefore, the rocky Chronoace watches were either
some special editions by Orient, or custom made by Orient dealers or local Jewelers.
So, while
verifying the authenticity of such items nowadays is hard, I can say that at
least most of the ones that I saw that had the specialty Chronoace dials
(again, Mexican, Focus etc.) seem to have all the right parts – case backs,
movement, dial etc. Others, particularly ones where the dial is not a typical
Chronoace one, would warrant caution.
The
pictures that appear in this post were taken from various sale ads.
