Lee's Watch Thread for MM'ers of Impeccable Taste

[WRXtranceformed]

Oh man, Joey done did it....I'm sure he will post up some pics here shortly

I forgot to post this here. I knew I wanted to pick up something new to celebrate getting my job offer, and I was looking at stuff all over the map as far as price range. A Seiko Presage for close to $1k, a Steinhart diver for ~$500, and some Zeppelin/Junkers pieces in the $500 range.

When it came down to it, I'm just not quite into the hobby enough, or rich enough, to really want to spend that much on a single watch, at least not when there's so much interesting stuff out there in the sub-$300 range.

I ended up ordering the Orient Ray II in Black (I originally wanted blue but figured black was more universal) on Amazon for $170, and then promptly picked up this Strapcode Endmill/President's style bracelet with solid end links which makes the watch a lot more comfortable, less rattly, and IMO looks a little more classic and reserved. The OEM bracelet has little polished sections to contrast against the brushed and I just didn't really like the look of it.



Surprisingly it's pretty much become my daily wearer. It looks great with everything, and you can do pretty much anything with it, if it gets dirty you just wash it in the sink. It's got a fantastic weight to it and could probably double as a self defense projectile weapon if you were really in a pinch. That being said its a 41.5mm case so it wears really well on my little manlet wrists. I definitely wouldn't want to wear anything bigger.

It has an in-house Orient movement that has both hacking and manual winding which is pretty rare at this price point. I haven't been keeping an eye on it lately, but during the first 10 days of ownership I only lost 10 seconds of time, which si absolutely insane for a watch this cheap. $5,000 Grand Seiko Spring Drives use an electronic regulator to get that sort of accuracy. I'm super happy with it and it's just sold me even harder on the Orient brand. My next purchase might very well be another one of their models, maybe the Bambino or the open-heart Esteem that Ken has.

If I was really pressed to find a complaint about it, it'd be that the day indicator doesn't 100% perfectly line up in it's window, which seems to be common around this price point. I'd also love if it had a ceramic (or just high gloss) bezel, and a sapphire crystal, but you just don't get those things in a sub-$200 watch.

I actually reached out to that Yobokies guy that does all the crazy SKX modifications about bezel options, but the only thing he can do is sell me a modified SKX bezel which would allow me to use a wide range of aftermarket inserts, but the SKX bezel sits much higher and doesn't slope down towards the edges of the case, which is one of the reasons I bought the Ray over the SKX in the first place, so w/e.

:thumbup: :thumbup: Love hearing your experience so far with the versatility and awesomeness of divers. It's amazing how well a nice bracelet completely changes a watch, I'm glad you pulled the trigger on that!

I have really enjoyed wearing my Aurora, it's getting a lot of wrist time lately. It seems to be settling down to about +/- 10s a day depending on how I rest it at night which is on the better end of its expected specs.

The beastly Deep Blue is still out getting warranty serviced for a broken crown so I haven't had the chance to install my Yobokies' Beads of Rice bracelet. I am REALLY excited to see that go on though:



My big SKX 2.0 mod build was put on hold as I waited on a clear caseback from Poland, but over 4 weeks later and a PayPal refund and I've kind of given up on it getting here. It probably got lost in the dark void of customs somewhere. It's not the end of the world but it annoyingly threw off my timeline for getting it completed by the end of this month (my birthday). Pics to come when that is finished in about a month