Grand Seiko’s Affordable Cousin Goes Extra Classy with a Gorgeous New Dress Watch

Orient’s Bambino collection is a wonder of mechanical watchmaking. It contains dozens of models priced well under $500 that look great and are powered by respectable mechanical movements.

Backed by generations of horological expertise and the massive infrastructure of the Seiko Epson Corporation, Oritent produces its watches entirely in-house, making its affordability that much more impressive.

Seiko Epson Corp.

Less renowned to the American market is Orient’s elevated sister brand, Orient Star. Think of it as the Grand Seiko to Orient’s Seiko, offering higher-quality watches with better movements, materials and finishing.

Unlike Grand Seiko, Orient Star retains the relative affordability of its better-known half, with most models priced under $1,500, and nothing above $4,000. It is, in fact, more aligned with the upper echelons of Seiko’s Presage and Prospex collections, but all of the above brands operate within the enormous Seiko Epson Corporation.

Seiko Epson Corp.

Fans of the Orient Bambino, especially the popular Version 2, with a bigger budget but the same prioritization of value, will be pleased to see the debut of the Orient Star M45 F7 Small Seconds. A streamlined version of the M45 series, its Roman Numeral hour markers and railroad minutes track resemble Orient’s entry-level favorite.

But this is clearly a far more advanced watch than the $400 Bambino. Sold for nearly triple the price, it is an elegant and respectable dress watch with nuanced refinements that still comes at an incredible bargain.

The Great Bambino

I’m going to take this opportunity to start calling Orient Star’s M45 F7 Small Seconds the “Great Bambino,” a moniker borrowed from baseball legend Babe Ruth. It retains the superior movement and build of the M45 series — named after a star cluster — but with a simplified dial.

Seiko Epson Corp.

It has a 39mm rounded stainless steel case, topped with a polished bezel and affixed with slightly curved lugs. The only fancy adornment outside of the dial is a half onion-shaped crown.

The dial lacks the moonphase, skeletonization and other complications of other M45 references currently on the market. It follows the purposeful single-complication simplicity of Orient’s Bambino, only with the date replaced by a power reserve indicator.

Seiko Epson Corp.

The M45 F7 Small Seconds debuts with three dial colors, including a limited-edition dark charcoal dial, accompanied by a black leather strap. The two regular production models are creamy white and grayish-green, both coming on brown leather straps.

The clean dial has a coarse matte finish with the aforementioned hour and minute tracks framing leaf hour and minute hands and Orient Star’s signature power reserve indicator with no track at 12:00.

As the name suggests, there is a sunken small seconds dial at 6:00 with a sunburst texture, a tiny leaf hand and a 12-dash track. The dial is capped with an anti-reflective-coated, dual-curved sapphire crystal.

Seiko Epson Corp.

Inside the case ticks an Epson Caliber F7H44 automatic movement, which beats at 3Hz and has a power reserve of 50 hours. The rotor is signed with the Orient Star logo in black lacquer and finished with Geneva stripes.

It is visible through a sapphire crystal exhibition caseback with a screw-down stainless steel ring. However, without a screw-down crown, the watch is only water resistant to 30m.

Availability and price

The M45 F7 Small Seconds is part of Orient Star’s 75th Anniversary celebration, which is why the gray reference is a limited edition of 500 pieces. It is an ideal design to expand the brand’s recognition in America because it offers everything that makes the Bambino so popular, only executed at a much higher level.

All three debut references of the M45 F7 Small Seconds are available in Europe and Asia, with the regular-production white and green references priced at €950, and the limited-edition gray reference priced at €1,050. However, at the time of writing, they are not yet available on Orient Star’s American website.

Orient and Orient Star watches typically take a few extra months to reach the American market, and the prices reflect the same amount in dollars, meaning $950 and $1,050, respectively.

Seiko Epson Corp.

Orient Star M45 F7 Small Seconds

Specs

Case Size	39mm
Movement	Epson Caliber F7H44 automatic
Water Resistance	30m

• $1,227 at Orient Star

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