Evidence to the existence of something cool in the history of Orient's website popped up while searching for information on its 60th anniversary models, pertaining to the year 2010. Good old Google insisted that a mini-site dedicated to the anniversary event once lived among the pages of the Japanese website of Orient. But it proved impossible to find any traces of it in Google's cached pages.
Further digging revealed that the anniversary site featured some section titled Orient Museum. Now, that was too intriguing to just ignore, so there began the deep dive.
For the dive I took advantage of a wonderful tool called "The Wayback Machine", which archives billions of web pages, going back more than a decade. Therein I found the little gem presented below.
Created using Macromedia Flash - then the most popular and best technology for its purpose - the Orient Museum is an interactive animation allowing one to browse through the history of Orient, looking at watches and calibers of old. It is mostly in Japanese but much of the content really can be enjoyed by non-speakers of the language.
Below is a link to the copy of the original "Orient Museum" interactive animation; remember Flash is now an aging technology. At the time of reading this, your browser might not support it - it may ask to download Flash player; or, it might ask you to enable the player, if it has not been used on this page before. I do recommend you enable it and enjoy this little creation!
If you wish to see a little more of what's included in the "Museum" before enabling Flash, you can also take a look at this video, where I've recorded some of the highlights of the animation.
Now, I do not know how long The Wayback Machine will keep the recorded animation; it may remain there for years to come, or get deleted tomorrow. So just in case, I have saved a copy of it. A copy of the Orient Museum can be downloaded here, to be played locally on your device (well, at least as long as Flash players are supported...)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zwHB44L2URrvKAP7OyWmWsvsx5DK28er
I hope you enjoy this little bit of Orient archaeology!
Hi, Eran! Thank you for your effort to make the "Museum" accessible to us.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why, but the 60th anniversary website gives me nostalgia.
At that time they offered Royal Orient (Orient Star Royal), Retro Future and other many cool watches. Current models are not bad. The quality is getting better. However, watches are something more than quality in my opinion. I'm looking for models from Orient that get me to say "this is it!"
By the way, I'm interested in when/how you became a fan of Orient watches. I'm glad if you would share some stories.
Hi! Thanks for sharing your perspective. I also think there's a little less quirkiness in Orient's current line up than in the past. Thankfully, many great watches, like those retrofutures, can be found still in good condition, and are of sufficiently high quality to remain attractive.
DeleteAnd, yes, I may post some more of my personal background and first encounters with Orient.
Yes, watches should have their own quirkiness or attractive uniqueness. Sometimes I see that watch manufacturers, especially lower-middle-range brands, leave behind their characteristic traits while improving their products' quality or performance. I hope Orient may not lose its proper DNA.
DeleteAnd I admire your enthusiasm for Orient watches. Your background seems very interesting.
Thanks again for the feedback! Much appreciated. To make a positive point here, I recently handled a new Orient Moonphase and can say it's 100% proper Orient DNA. More on this in a few weeks...
DeleteI´m fairly new to watch collecting and Orient, but it seems to me there´s a lack of communication from Orient watch company, at least outside Japan, and a lack of information on a lot of models. For example, there´s at least two variants of the new diver (the so called "Mako 3") that aren´t featured on the website. It also seems that there´s been a huge number of models produced the last ten years or so, many of which are already hard or impossible to come by. It would be interesting to hear if you have any thoughts on this.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point on lack of communication. Obtaining information on Orient's past and present requires real detective work. On one hand it can be very frustrating - on the other, it does make my work here more challenging and, I hope, valuable.
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