Reply With QuoteWell done Ken! Love the wrist shot!
Let's start with the photo in question, in an article by Worn and Wound on the 10th anniversary of the Orient Mako the following photo was included in the article.
And here is a link to the article:
http://wornandwound.com/orient-marks...iversary-mako/
Like all good detective stories, let's flash back to late 2015, early 2016. I didn't know much about the Orient brand or indeed the Mako, but the all blue version appeared on sales corner for sale by Paul (Cat7), I was stunned by it, I thought what a cracking watch and the deep blue colour looked wonderful. Paul had listed it below £100 and then bumped it and reduced the price - it was one of those occasions when you can't say no. I bought it and was delighted with it. I have no idea why, but I flipped it to Trev (Peck) and was hit with buyers remorse quite quickly. I thought replacing it would be easy, but the few that appeared on e-bay sold really well. Eventually I managed to get one on e-bay about 6 months ago.
Around this time I stumbled upon the Worn and Wound article and the photograph. Having been a lad in the 70s and 80s in pre CD days, every single seemed to come in three different colours, a picture disk and a 12" vinyl - this must be where the collecting bug stems back to.
My first port of call was to checkout all the Orient dealers to see if anyone had any of the missing four in stock. The only one I found was the Orange dial at Creation Watches in Singapore - 58% off and free postage, so for the princely sum of £101.00 number two arrived.
The third to show was a bit by surprise, sitting one evening watching the footie with my i-pad on my knee flicking between TZ and e-bay a Pepsi on a black divers strap suddenly appeared as a 'buy it now' and was located in Stoke on Trent, so I bought it. The lady selling couldn't believe it, she told me that I bought it within minutes of her posting the listing.
Whilst happy with the purchase I needed a genuine OEM Orient SS bracelet so started hunting for one and found a guy in one of those Russian block countries who was selling one (he's-back-is-Stan) as Lee Evens once joked. I took a punt, but the deal worked out okay, so the Pepsi is now on SS bracelet.
The next opportunity was the black. I found two for sale, one in Germany with the listing entirely in German and the other was in Chicago. So I messaged the guy to see if he would ship to the UK, which he was happy to do so number four arrived.
This just left me with the biggest hurdle to get over, trying to find a yellow. The W&W suggested that on 90 were made and the feedback at the base of the article suggested that they were only available to people in the US. It quickly sold out. This required me to up the anti and go in for some extreme hunting. I had about 10 tabs on my i-pad open and set for this watch, e-bay.co.uk, e-bay.com, Chrono24, Amazon.uk, Amazon.com etc. You get the picture. Several times a day I whizzed through them without success.
Then the other Monday morning I was up about 7:30 and enjoying a cup of tea, when one flashed up on e-bay.com. The seller was in Calgary in Canada and had listed at midnight his time, as we are 8 hours ahead I just happened to see it as it went up. He put a buy now price or make an offer. None of that nonsense, I just clicked buy now before anyone else could. Nearly two weeks later and the watch arrived this week.
So now to purpose of the whole exercise, the recreation of the photo. Apologies for the quality, not easy trying to get a good clear image with an i-pad.
And of course no article is complete without a customary wrist shot.
Thanks for reading,
Ken
Last edited by Wallasey Runner; 26th January 2017 at 18:40.
Well done Ken! Love the wrist shot!
Excellent, well done. :-)
Ken, sadly you seem to have lost the plot:-)
Nice work though.
Last edited by RAJEN; 26th January 2017 at 19:01.
A great piece of detective work!
What a great post! Well done that man
Really cool story and great picture. If they ever get to much for you I would happily provide a good home to the yellow.
Fantastic achievement.
Bonkers but I love it! They all look great!
Well that didn't take long Ken! Can't have been much of a challenge... Maybe you should seek out ALL varieties of the Mako now?
Great story and I admire your dedication. You don't seem to have compromised on quality either - was it ever tempting to buy a rough or compromised one?
Well done Ken, it all makes sense now!
Never really paid too much attention to Orient, how do these Makos (Maki?) compare to something like an SKX007/9?
Great post BTW, I can see why you went for all 5.
Thanks for the comments. To answer a few points, I am not looking to expand the collection. As far as I can see there are three Mako 2s Blue, Black and Pepsi - no Orange or Yellow. They are very similar, although no pusher at 2 o'clock and they have introduced hacking. The larger ones at 46mm just don't appeal to me.
Condition was important, I saw some dogs with scratched inserts and crowns missing etc and gave those a wide birth. Most I bought had the same story, part of a larger watch collection, worn in rotation with other watches and well looked after and selling because I have too many watches - the type of description that you would look for on SC.
You could search the various sites and probably buy all but the yellow today, but prices and condition do vary. The yellow is the real story and the reason W&W did their article in the first place. There are WTBs for the yellow on other forums, but as with all rarities, desirability and lack of availability has the effect of pushing the price up.
Can't really compare to Seiko - but did you know that Orient is owned by Seiko.
Last edited by Wallasey Runner; 26th January 2017 at 20:05.
Great Watches that keep excellent time with in house movements and yes I for one was aware that Seiko owned Orient.
Very well done.
Excellent read and lovely watches thank you.
Congratulations and a good story, thanks.
Well done Ken you seem to have had many different watches, whats next ?
Originally Posted by CardShark
I did, yes
A great read. That looks like a fun project. Fair play to you!
Thats a top effort, well done.
As I've mentioned previously to you Ken, I've been there with the full Mako ensemble in a former life and it felt "complete'.
I'm glad you eventually made it with the Yellow.
Nice work!
Is there a favourite among them (apologies if I missed it) and what does the button do?
I'm now £103 lighter and soon to be a orange dialed Mako heavier, one of those watches I've known about for years but never tried.
Great story and a lot of hard work put in to achieve a superb end result!
Nice collection.
SKX vs Mako? I've had both 4 times each and would say that the Mako is more refined.
The Mako in my experience has a more accurate movement out the box, better crown feedback, better alignment of hands, nicer dial finish, dresses up better. Seems that the only risk is that the bezel may be tight.
The SKX in my experience has much better lume, looks better over all and is a classic design, will look better when beat up a bit, certified diver's watch. But out of the 4 I've had the alignment has been off on the hands and chapter ring.
Well done. I'll take the blue or the pepsi when you decide to flip.
Have to say (and I'm amazed nobody else has) the W&W photo drives me crazy. The lined background with the watches out of alignment with it and all the bracelets folded slightly differently. Arghhh!
Nice work
Andy
Wanted - Damasko DC57
My OCD radar is twitching from the time differences on your group shot.
Dedication to a cause with a bit of madness mixed in - Brilliant!!
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Brilliant! Great to read all the effort paid off.
Great collection, i have never owned an Orient, but your thread planted that seed in my head!
Eccentric, obsessive, gratuitous and glorious.
Well done on completing the collection and I'm sure the time investment was matched or exceeded by the fun factor each time you secured one more. Just goes to prove that there's as much if not more enjoyment in collecting at the cheaper end of the scale. What's next?
Great stuff - well done sir!
I have the orange one and agree they're cracking little watches and exceptionally good value. Your pics look great, and are seriously tempting me to set off on the quest to obtain the other four too.
Can I ask what you had to pay for the yellow one (or, if you prefer, whether it was significantly costlier than the others), and whether you were able to establish how many of them were made?
Thanks for the comments guys, plenty of laughs there. To answer a few specific questions:
Thanks James, probably the blue or the Pepsi, which is effectively the same watch with a splash of red on the insert. The button changes the day and you change the date using the crown. Well done on the Orange, I assume that you have been on the Creation website. When mine arrived the bezel was a little stiff, so I ran it under warm water and that freed it up a bit, it is fine now. The Orange dial is a lovely colour and great value for the money.Nice work!
Is there a favourite among them (apologies if I missed it) and what does the button do?
I'm now £103 lighter and soon to be a orange dialed Mako heavier, one of those watches I've known about for years but never tried.
I think people are waiting for me to flip (whatever gives people the idea that I am prone to flipping?). The Yellow was bagged early on in this thread and now you want one of the blues.
Agreed, but I was wearing the Yellow, you would have to let them all run down and set the times to match.
Just to upset your OCD even more, have you noticed that the day on the Pepsi on the wrist shot has started to turn !!
Totally agree that you can have fun collecting watches without having buy brands that begin with O, P & R. Not sure what is next, certainly nothing like this. I was allocated a Speedy Tuesday, but I am not feeling the love for it at the moment. I just wait for something to pop up that makes you say, I want one of those.
The W&W article suggests that in 2014 a further 90 watches were made available to the US market, it also makes reference to earlier releases of the Yellow selling out quickly, but it is not specific on numbers. The guy I bought mine off told me that he bought it new in 2011, so mine is not one of the 90 released in 2014.
The guy listed the Yellow at $400.00 buy now or best offer. I just couldn't take the risk of someone else buying it whilst I flaffed around making him a lower offer with an 8 hour time difference - so I just clicked on buy it now to secure the watch. As you know, the exchange rate is poor at the moment, so the total cost to me including postage and import duties and VAT was £385.00.
The Orange was £101 brand new from Creation in Singapore and is still available if anyone is considering one. The other three will probably cost between £150 and £200 each. A lot appear with the black rubber divers strap - I would hold out for watches on the original SS bracelets.
My target was to complete the project without going into four figures, which I managed with about £40 to spare. Crazy when you think that £1k wouldn't buy you much if you went shopping for a new watch.
Brilliant - thanks for that and for a great thread.
If anyone is after the Black version, this one looks like a stunner, brand new, in the U.K. and a great price.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Orient...UAAOSw-0xYOpHS
£160 isn't a great price for a Mako. Keep a look out for used ones and you'll get one for £70-£80.
The prices went up not long after the release of the new updated Mako's, piggybacking on the hype of the new ones. The old ones are a £100 watch at most.
Well done and a great re-creation, so is that a shoal of Mako's, feel free to find other suitable collective nouns
I thought that, but you will seriously struggle to find decent examples on SS bracelets for under £100, if at all. I agree that was new price when they came out, but things have moved on.
Last edited by Wallasey Runner; 27th January 2017 at 18:44.
Great post Ken, certainly proves one thing, watch collectors are seriously touched! :)
Thanks Tony, I think that you have commented on this before, better than some of the Friday thread wrists which look like they would be more suited to the Pits & Pelts threadHa!
Not only nice work, but an education in male grooming
That's quite a post Ken! Well mine (or yours) is currently enjoying a final beer in the Caribbean.
https://postimg.org/image/44e0tqmq1/
Loving your work, there.
I've had orange and blue, and really enjoyed both- I look at any Mako fondly these days! Having also had a succession of both these and SKX0?? watches, my view is that the Seiko is probably marginally the better watch, but that I prefer the Mako! I think the blue is my favourite, the colour is just stunning.
This week I shall mostly be wearing... my blue Mako. Don't think I've worn it since the summer. I love it but tracking down all the other variants?! Great effort.
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Dude,hope you don't wax or shave your wrists!😜Thanks Tony, I think that you have commented on this before, better than some of the Friday thread wrists which look like they would be more suited to the Pits & Pelts thread
No Raj, I come on here and see how many PPs everyone has and all my hairs fall out
Rumor has it that some more may fall out in coming days.No Raj, I come on here and see how many PPs everyone has and all my hairs fall out
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