Pocket watches today are admittedly rare, especially new ones. But here is an interesting one that is probably a good fit for anyone who might want one. Further, it houses the very first manually wound movement made by Orient. Until now, they have been making automatic movements (that don’t feature hand winding). As far as pocket watches go, with Orient CDD00001W (which I will just refer to as the “Orient Pocket Watch”) is relatively small. It is actually the size of a modern modestly sized watch at 40mm wide. A nice feature for those people who don’t want to carry around large pocket watches. There is another reason for the small size. The Orient Caliber 48C40 movement is actually made to go into a watch. It just isn’t in one yet (that I know of). It hearkens a future of more sophisticated movements made by the over 50 year old mechanical watch maker from Japan. Orient already makes a full line of nice mechanical watches, but I see them slowly moving up market a bit. The movement has a 40 hour power reserve, with a hour reserve indicator on the dial, and an escapement that beats are 21,600 bhp (beats/rotations per hour). Lastly, the movement features a hack seconds functions that stops the seconds hand when you full the crown out.
In the future, I anticipate that Orient will have a full line of manually wound watches, and then eventually watches that have both manual winding, and automatic winding (just as Swiss automatic movements do). Orient takes the time to decorate the movement with perlage polishing. Overall I am happy with the movement as it has nice operation and is made Orient themselves. It is a nice value for the money. Feels smooth in operation, and it is nice to wind via the top-mounted crown. It has all the feeling you want from a traditional style manually wound mechanical movement. You can see the movement through the sapphire caseback window. Lovers of this genre can’t really go wrong.
The pocket watch case itself is hefty in a really nicely polished steel. I am actually impressed with the high level of polish, and that the watch feels so solidly made. The dial is machine engraved steel that looks nice with its various textured areas. The Breguet style blued steel pomme hands as well as Arabic numerals fit the character of the watch well. Small steel orbs are placed behind the hour markers that enhance the look of depth, as well as the pocket watch’s vintage style demeanor. The dial is covered with a sapphire crystal and the watch is water resistant to 30 meters. I must say that the dial layout is flawlessly done. That layout of the power reserve indicator, Orient company logo, and the length of the hands are done precisely as should have been done. I can tell that Orient’s designers put their time into this one.
Attached to the watch is the requisite metal chain attached to the belt loop clip. You can remove the chain easily if you like. I tried to think about gripes I had for the watch. I really can’t think of too much given the price. There are a few things about the pocket watch that make it feel different compared to other pocket watches. Such as the shape of the entire case and of course the size. Plus, you’ll need to see how to incorporate a pocket watch into your life. But those are part of what the watch are, not really a problem with it. The dial is clean, easy to use and attractive. As a first manually wound mechanical movement, the caliber is just fine, and the fit and finish on the watch is good for the price of about $300 (retail is $390, but all prices online are closer to $300 or less). Also, even if you don’t see yourself getting a pocket watch, apparently they make good gifts.
More on the Orient CDD00001W pocket watch from Orient USA here.
