Orient King Diver [43mm] Automatic

The Orient King Diver represents a defining moment in the brand’s history — the period when Japanese tool watches started competing head-to-head with their Swiss counterparts in design, engineering, and purpose. While Seiko’s and Citizen’s divers often dominate the conversation, Orient carved out its own niche by blending utility with unmistakable personality — and the King Diver is its most iconic expression of that idea.

Introduced in the mid-1960s, the King Diver was Orient’s answer to the emerging era of recreational diving and underwater exploration. Unlike later automatic editions, this early 43 mm manual-wind variant captures the purity of Orient’s mechanical craft. The manually wound movement gives the watch a tactile charm — you interact with it every day, winding it as if keeping an old machine alive.

The dual-crown design controls the internal rotating bezel, a hallmark of the King Diver line, allowing elapsed-time tracking without compromising water resistance. Its bold dial layout, with orange and white sector markings, large applied indices, and sword hands, balances technical clarity with visual drama — unmistakably Japanese in its confidence. The 21-jewel movement inside was built entirely in-house, a testament to Orient’s independent manufacturing ethos at a time when vertical integration was rare.

What makes the King Diver truly special today is its authenticity and rarity. Many examples have been lost or replaced by later automatic reissues, but the original manual-wind King Diver stands apart as the purest form — a bridge between vintage tool-watch design and the spirited experimentation that defined Japanese horology in the 1960s and ’70s.

Key Features

• Case Size: 43 mm (stainless steel)

• Movement: Manual-wind, 21 jewels

• Dial: Black with orange and white sector markings

• Functions: Day, Date, Internal rotating bezel (dual crowns)

• Crystal: Domed acrylic

• Strap: Black rubber with red contrast stitching (aftermarket)

• Era: Mid-1960s

• Provenance: Original manual-wind version of Orient’s famed King Diver — a true Japanese tool-watch classic