Orient's Mystery Dials

"Mystery Watches" is a general term for watches where the operation of the mechanism, or the movement of the hands, is not clear to the viewer. More specifically, we speak of Mystery Dials when referring to a watch dial that seems to conceal the way the mechanism makes the hands move around.

While some mystery watches can get very fancy, with transparent wheels that connect to the movement, a more down-to-earth mystery dial effect can be achieved at a relatively low cost. Historically, Orient always preferred to choose the more cost-effective path; and so it did in the case of mystery dials as well.

Let's take a look at some examples of mystery dials from Orient's distant – and more recent – past.

Orient began playing around with unconventional dial/hand configurations as early as the mid-1950s, using its Orient Star range as a platform. These early models, like the ones shown in the above picture, weren't classic "mystery" per se, but they did offer a fairly unusual design.

The second hand was replaced with a kind of turbine, which rotated against a reverse turbine background – thereby creating a cool effect when moving. A number of versions were produced, in black and white.

Toward the end of the 1950s, Orient began developing its new Royal range, so they naturally added a "mystery" version as well.

The Royal Orient's concept was quite similar to the Orient Star, again with the rotating "turbine". However, the execution of the Royal looks a bit more sophisticated. You can read more about this particular model, here.

In the early 1960s, new models joined the Orient line-up. The Grand Prix, another high-end model, was next to get the turbine second-hand; curiously though, the design was a lot simpler, without the fixed part, making the effect a lot less impressive. Part of the "mystery" of the earlier turbine design was also that it hid the base of the hour and minute hands, so only their tips would show; here, this effect was also gone.

However, around the same time, Orient revealed the Freshman. And, the Freshman mystery version finally featured a proper "mystery dial", with an arrow-like second hand, magically hovering around the center of the watch. Indeed it was painted on a transparent disc.

The Olympia range was perhaps Orient's most diverse line in the 1960s. It was only appropriate, then, that it also received the most varied collection of Mystery Dial designs – as you can see in the picture above.

The watches at the top-left and bottom-right corners of the picture use the same style of hovering arrow second hand as the Freshman – quite possibly even the very same part. The model at the top-right corner is somewhat closer in spirit to the early turbine designs, only this one seems to have been somewhat modernized, and given a more streamlined appearance.

This leaves one more watch that's unique not only for its dial, but its entire design. This one is special enough to deserve a dedicated blog post… coming soon!

After the Olympia, Orient have stopped making Mystery Watches, and it took more than 40 years before they returned to this concept.

It was only in 2011, with the introduction of the "Stylish and Smart" Disk watch, that Orient resumed production of a proper mystery dial. This one used an "inverse hand", where a moving disk had a hole shaped like the hour hand which revealed the colors beneath.

Now, using elaborate shapes instead of the second hand, like the early "turbine designs" did, can be quite strenuous for the watch movement, as it needs to constantly push something significantly heavier than a typically very thin hand. Rotating the slow-moving hour hand, however, is fairly effortless. So there's no reason why Orient can't add a bit of mystery to its current line-up, too!

 

Pictures that appear in this post were taken from the 1999 Orient Watch Catalog book, and some other online publications.