Description
ORIENT quartz watch
JAPANESE MOVEMENT
“Orient” takes its name from the Latin wordoriri– “to rise” or “to be born” – the same root behind “Orient” as a direction: the east, where the sun rises. The company’s roots go back to 1901, when watchmaker Shogoro Yoshida opened a watch shop in Ueno, Tokyo, initially importing pocket watches before starting his own watch-case production in 1913. After his clock-making venture Toyo Tokei Manufacturing (founded 1920) was shut down during wartime, Yoshida’s watchmaking business was reborn in 1950 as the Tama Keiki Company, renamed Orient Watch Company, Limited in 1951. So the brand name ties directly to the idea of a new dawn – a fitting name for a watchmaker rebuilding itself from the ground up in postwar Japan.
About the Orient Quartz Classic Line
The GW00 series is Orient’s slim quartz dress line of the 2000s — the direct predecessor of the Quartz Classic models Orient still sells today. Where Orient built its reputation on affordable in-house automatics, lines like this one covered the other side of the catalog: thin, quiet, maintenance-free watches for buyers who wanted a clean dresser rather than a mechanical hobby piece.
The formula is deliberately restrained: a slim polished stainless steel case, a glossy dial with applied baton markers anchored by a single applied Roman XII, a discreet date window at 3 o’clock and a “Water Resist” rating for everyday splashes. Inside sits an Epson-built Japanese analog quartz movement — Orient has been part of the Seiko Epson group since 2009, and its quartz calibers come from the same Japanese movement factories.
The GW00 case has since been replaced in Orient’s catalog by the updated GW0100 series, but the design has barely changed in twenty years — a sign the proportions were right the first time. It is not a collector’s grail and doesn’t pretend to be: it’s an honest, well-proportioned everyday dress watch from a respected Japanese name.
About This Watch
This example is the black-dial GW00 on a leather strap: case-back reference GW00-C0-A, dial code GW00-L10-R. The glossy black dial carries applied polished baton markers, a single applied Roman XII, slim tapered hands and a white-framed date window at 3 o’clock, with a cursive “Water Resist” script above 6. The slim all-stainless case wears flat and low on the wrist and closes with a snap-on steel case-back stamped “W.R. ALL ST. STEEL / ORIENT WATCH CO., LTD.”
Inside is an Epson VX3KE analog quartz movement (Japan) — a no-jewels workhorse caliber running on a common battery cell: accurate, robust and inexpensive to maintain. The watch is fitted with a black croc-grain leather strap on a steel pin buckle.
Technical Specifications
- Brand:Orient
- Line:Quartz Classic (GW00 series)
- Reference Number:GW00-C0-A (case-back); dial code GW00-L10-R
- Movement:Epson VX3KE analog quartz (Japan), three hands with date
- Serial Number:Not individually serialized on case-back
- Production Date:Contemporary production, 2000s–2010s (GW00 reference now discontinued)
- Case Material:Polished stainless steel
- Case Diameter:Approx. 36 mm (excluding crown)
- Dial:Glossy black with applied silver baton markers, Roman XII, date at 3 o’clock
- Crystal:Mineral glass
- Case-back:Solid stainless steel, snap-on, marked “ST GW00-C0-A CS / W.R. ALL ST. STEEL”
- Country of Manufacture:Japanese Orient (Epson) movement; dial marked “Japan Mov’t”
Condition Report
Dial:excellent — the glossy black surface is clean, applied markers and hands are bright, and the date is crisp and well centered.Crystal:clean, with no notable scratches visible.Case:light polish marks and fine scratches on the polished surfaces from normal wear, most visible on the bezel at an angle; some old residue and storage marks around the case-back rim and lug recesses.Strap:black croc-grain leather strap in good pre-owned condition with light creasing at the buckle holes.
Watch went through a recent service by a professional watch technician and keeps good time.Comes complete with black croc-grain leather strap.
We recommend adding a new Orient lug width matched leather strap with your order if you prefer a fresh strap out of the box.
This watch ships from 🇺🇦Ukraine with tracking number
Why Collectors Want This Watch Today
The GW00 is not a rarity and we won’t pretend otherwise — its appeal is simpler. This is a discontinued, Japanese-movement slim dresser whose design continues almost unchanged in Orient’s current Quartz Classic line at around $120–150 new; this is the earlier generation of the same watch, serviced and running, at a friendlier price. If you want one watch to wear with a jacket — thin enough to slip under a cuff, legible at a glance, no winding and no fuss — this is exactly that watch.
Modes of payment:
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We guarantee the item you receive looks and works exactly as advertised —or your money back.
Orient lug-width matched leather straps — 18 / 19 / 20 mm
About the watch factory
Orient Watch Company, Ltd.(オリエント時計株式会社) is a Japanese watchmaker founded in 1950, tracing its roots to a Tokyo watch shop opened in 1901 by Shogoro Yoshida. Orient has always been known for something Seiko and Citizen weren’t as quick to embrace at the entry level: in-house automatic movements, sold at accessible prices, in an era when many budget watches from other makers ran on outsourced or quartz movements. Since 2009 Orient has operated as a subsidiary of Seiko Epson (unrelated to its old rival Seiko Group despite the name coincidence with “Epson”), with its watch business fully folded into Epson in 2017. Movements are produced in-house by Epson’s Akita facility in Yuzawa, Akita Prefecture, the same roots as Orient’s historic manufacturing base. Today Orient’s catalog splits into two tiers: the mainline Orient collection (value-driven automatics and quartz pieces, including the cult-favorite Bambino dress watch) and Orient Star, the brand’s higher-end line with in-house movements, hand-finished dials, and occasional skeletonized or complicated pieces aimed at serious collectors. Across both tiers, Orient has built its reputation on delivering genuine mechanical horology, export-quality automatic movements with real jeweling and finishing, at price points well below what Swiss competitors charge for comparable engineering.
