Orient Star Builds a New Hand-Wound Skeleton Calibre for Its 75th Anniversary Flagship

Orient Star is the upper line of Orient, the Japanese brand owned by Seiko Epson, and it's kind of known for partially openworked watches. Well, for it's 75th anniversary, they're making a brand new openworked watch, with a new in-house hand-wound calibre with a silicon escape wheel, a step up from the M45 F8 skeleton of 2021. It’s the most ambitious Orient I’ve seen, and I'm really stumped whether it works or not.

The new steel case is 40mm wide and 9.5mm thick, with a lug-to-lug of 46.8mm. The lugs are stepped, and the sides are brushed while the polished surfaces get Zaratsu treatment (Orient uses the other name, Sallaz). Both top and bottom crystals are sapphire. The top one curves on two axes and has an anti-reflective coating. Water resistance is 30 meters. Could be better.

There is no dial in the usual sense. You look straight into the movement, which is cut into overlapping circular openings on three levels, with fine lines inked by hand on the bridges. Blued skeleton hands tell the time, applied Roman numerals mark the quarters, and the vertical axis carries a power reserve at 12 and hacking small seconds at six.

The movement is the new calibre F9B82, made in-house and wound by hand. It beats at 4Hz, has 20 jewels and uses a silicon escape wheel with a patented shape meant to improve efficiency. Power reserve is over 72 hours, the longest of any Orient, and rated accuracy is +10 to -4 seconds a day. Through the caseback you can see mirror-polished chamfers cut with diamond tools, hairline finishing applied by hand and blued screws. The strap is black goatskin, vegetable-tanned and worked by hand in several directions using a Japanese method called Chari Happo, with a 20mm lug width and a folding clasp.

The Orient Star Skeleton 75th Anniversary Flagship RE-BR0001N is limited to 130 pieces and priced at ¥1,100,000 (about €6,150). See more on the Orient Star website.