The 12 Months of Orient: Aviator Automatic – $145.00 w/ DapperedJuly ($290)
The Orient Watch Company has a dedicated following for good reason. They’re the only watchmaker whose foundation is a wide range of incredible looking affordable automatics, & now they’ve partnered up with us to give away a different watch for each of the next 12 months. Every month we’ll review and give away a different featured watch, plus you’ll also get a new promo code good for 50% off ANY watch at OrientWatchUSA.com for that month.
UPDATE: As of late February 2012, Orient has decided to no longer honor codes that delivered 50% off. Those codes are now worth 30% off. This is a new regulation that affects all of their promotional agreements.
Right around $150 for a well built, well proportioned, automatic watch. That’s right in Orient’s wheelhouse. Their Aviator Automatic is no doubt a casual/sport watch, but it looks and feels good enough on your wrist that you’ll be finding excuses to wear it on more than just the weekends.
It has a good solid weight to it. Not heavy, but far from the wimpy thin feel many a (quartz) sport watch has. It starts up nice and quick and even though it doesn’t have a skeleton/exhibition caseback, it’s easy to feel the oscillating weight slide around when you move it to get it going.
The crown screws down (unscrewed pic below), the Bezel rotates, and the entire face glows good and bright in the dark. It’s a minor detail, but the leather band feels and looks better than most. The matte finish and off white-contrast stitching helps this thing stay true to it’s “go ahead and get it dirty” feel. It honestly looks smaller than its 43mm, but for the guys with real thin wrists, it might be an issue.
Biggest drawback is probably the first pic you see on the OrientWatchUSA website. It’s fair to say that that particular shot doesn’t do this watch any favors.
Here’s how to win the Aviator seen here: Send an email to contests@dappered.com with the subject: Orient July. One entry per person. Deadline for entry is 11:59 pm ET on 7/2/11
Update: Congrats to James Q. who won the Aviator in our drawing. Ten more months & watches to go!
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Now there’s an Orient I can get behind.
Is this a true annual calendar (i.e. does it skip straight from June 30 to July 1, or from Feb 28 to March 1?)
Your mailto link at the end still populated the subject with “Orient June”
I really like those video reviews they have on the Orient site. The guy that does the reviews is named Mark and he does a nice job of explaining the features and the look of every watch (including a separate video for every variation of every model). More sites should do this.
Interesting note: on their website, it shows this as a day/date (today is: Friday the 1st,) whereas the pics here reflect an “annual calendar” (today is: “July 1”.)
Small difference to most people. Big difference to whoever is making the movement.
Nice, I Like,
have the aviator in blue face. recommend it highly; keeps excellent time.
Fixed. Thanks for the catch (I’ll triple check the dates of this batch of entries and even if they come in with the wrong subject thanks to my goof, they’ll still be in for this round)
Awesome watch! Thanks for another great contest, Joe. Keep it up!
Cheers,
Ben
I love these contests. 43 might be big for me, but for free I’ll give it a shot!
I absolutely love the style and the military look of the numerals but I’m so wary of the green cast of glow-in-the-dark stuff. In my opinion, that makes it look like a kid’s watch. I want a stark white face and will live with not being able to tell time in the dark as a tradeoff.
Orient, please make a non glow-in-the-dark version of this!
I love my Orient Mako. It receives a lot of attention, and takes fantastic time.
– Joe
DAMN! For some reason this post didn’t appear in the RSS feed! I can’t believe I missed this! Argggh!