The "Mystery" Olympia Calendar

Orient first introduced its Olympia series in 1961, along with the L-type movement. Incidentally this was the same year the Zodiac watch company, then still a Swiss brand, launched its Olympos watch, famous for its unusual manta ray-shaped case.

Despite the simultaneity of the events and similarity of names, the first Orient Olympia had a perfectly normal round case, and bore no resemblance to the Zodiac watch. The names too were probably only inadvertently related – Olympos being an alternative spelling for Olympus (as in the name of the mountain, or the home of the Greek gods) whereas Olympia more likely was chosen in preparation for the upcoming 1964 Olympics in Japan.

And yet, despite all of the above, in 1963 Orient went ahead and presented a version of the Olympia Calendar watch shaped like the Zodiac's manta ray. Indeed the case shape was upside down, with the shorter sides of the case pointing downward instead of up (as in the Swiss model) and the crown placed at 4 instead of 2, but the source of inspiration for the design was clear.

Original or not, the unusual design became a classic of sorts, and appeared on both Orient's 60^th anniversary commemorative book and the 1999 Orient Watch Catalog book. You already know, that is the sort of vintage piece I got to get my hands on, and that's exactly what I did.

This model differs very slightly from the model pictured in those books, in the shape of the "hour hand", but it is the same in all other respects. And I'm putting "hand" between parentheses as this is not really a hand but rather a revolving hour disc. Yes, this is one of Orient's Mystery Dials I wrote about a few weeks ago.

Other than the disc, the rest of the dial seems fairly normal, with standard minute and seconds hands. Keep in mind, the quicker the hand, the greater the effort for the movement if it needs to push a heavy disc instead of a thin, light hand. Rotating an hour disc was fairly easy, but for minutes and seconds, normal hands were a must.

This watch is powered by the same hand-winding LC caliber as other Olympia Calendar models, like this Swimmer or this Speed Data (or Dater). Despite the age and the "mystery" configuration it is perfectly easy to maintain. The watch was not working well when I received it, so I had my local watchmaker fix it. He did it quickly and the watch is now healthy, winds and keeps very accurate time.

Now, reading the time might be a bit confusing at first, as the eye automatically searches for the larger hand it sees, and one may initially confuse the minute to be the hour. In this aspect, I guess the other design – with the more prominent arrow, as shown in the old book – might be better. But once you get used to it, reading the time is easy, and legibility is quite good. Especially with those large shiny markers at 12 and 6.

This case shape offers a unique aesthetic, which makes it a conversation piece – in fact, two colleagues who usually don't comment on my (or any) watches, complimented me on this watch as I wore it to work. But it is more than just about being different.

The typical case diameter for a dress watch at the time was around 36mm. Which is lovely but a little small for my wrist. The manta-ray case imposes a larger diameter – here it's 39mm at the widest point (which also acts as a crown guard of sorts), despite the bezel only measuring 35mm.

The shape also affects the lugs, which – flowing naturally from the sides of the case – are also thicker than normal dress watch lugs. All in all, the watch manages to maintain a more substantial wrist presence compared to simpler round cases that would use the same movement. It's not bulky or anything – on the contrary, the watch is very elegant – it just looks better.

Other dimensions are a total length of merely 40.5mm lug to lug, and just a tad over 10mm in thickness. Indeed, despite the enhanced wrist presence it is still a sleek dress watch that would easily hide under your cuffs.

As such, it is also super light and wearable. As I bought it without a strap, I attached this special blue calf leather band from "Strap Geeks" and I think it works well! The gold and blue combo is somewhat unusual but suits this equally unusual watch nicely. And this strap is really good quality for the price and has a very pleasant feel and texture.

This really is a watch that stood the test of time. It looks a bit quirky today, but probably no more than it did when it was released, about 60 years ago. The movement is robust, and the case is well finished. It is gold-filled, a more durable technique than simple plating, and indeed it still looks marvelous. Those colleagues who noticed it? They were quite astounded to hear how old it is (about both their ages combined).

Getting your hands on one of these, today, would take a while as this particular shape of Olympia Calendar does not go on sale often. I would estimate possibly once every 6 months on the more globally reachable channels – and maybe a little more if you have access to local shops in Japan. However when they do pop up they're not extremely expensive. So far, the few I've come across in recent years, up to including the one I just bought, were in the range of 400 – 700 USD. Definitely worth the hunt!