My newest incoming Orient J39908-70 ....

[Seiko7A38]

If you follow the WRUW thread then you may have noticed this caption in my post yesterday:

Just trying on this delightful example of Orient J39908-70 which arrived from Japan in this morning's post.

Here's the back story. Apologies if I ramble on a bit. The included links are intended to help keep it shorter, hopefully.
I haven't written much about these dressy versions of Orient J39 lately, apart from at the bottom of this forum section:
Orient J39908-70 - final missing variant acquired ? The reason being that I haven't purchased (m)any in recent years.
Most of the examples that I'd bought in years gone by, were documented in this thread on the old archived forum:
My newest incoming J39908-70 - Variations on a theme ....

In the absence of any Orient database, I've documented my observations of the many dozens of Orient J39 variants in an Excel spreadsheet. Here's an extract of the known J39908-70 variants - 10 so far .... branded both Orient and Racer:

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They all share the same slightly ornate gold-plated metal-skinned resin watch case. IMO one of the most attractive versions is the plain white dialed Orient with stick batons and gold-rimmed sub-dials (dial part number J392 9087-034).

Indeed, the first Orient J39908-70 I ever bought, back in August 2011, was one of this variant. However, to say it was a very poor example is a minor understatement. It turned out to have the worst battery acid destroyed movement that I personally have ever encountered, to this day. Its watch case was also suffering from sweat induced corrosion.

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Its purchase pre-dates the old forum. I probably wrote up my tale of woe on RLT. However, I did a fairly comprehensive belated summary of my sob story and the subsequent re-build in these two threads on the old archived forum:
My newest incoming Orient J39 - 'NOS' but more disappointment (title actually refers to another J39908-70)
B.A.D. 7A38 movement - back from the brink. Well, maybe part way, anyway ....
If you read all through that first thread (2nd page), you'll know that in November 2020, I finally treated the watch to a replacement watch case. It was secondhand; far from mint, but a lot better condition than the badly corroded original.
On Sunday 22nd November 2020, I posted this wrist shot on page 89 of the old forum's ONE and ONLY WRUW thread:

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I captioned it:

Sunny Sunday afternoon shot of my 'battered beater' B.A.D. (battery acid damaged) Orient J39908-70, which finally this morning, after 9 years of ownership, I've gotten round to fitting into a better condition donor watch case.
It's still no oil painting ....

[Seiko7A38]

A bit rough it may have been, but at least I had an example of this J39908-70 variant in my collection. If you've read through those old threads I linked, then you'll know it came from eBay Australia in August 2011. Up until last month, I'd never seen another example of this particular variant. So it's comparatively rare and I didn't expect to find another.

I only have one model specific Orient saved search set up on Buyee / Yahoo Japan and that's J39701-70. I trust that my catch-all saved search Orient クロノグラフ will find anything of interest and I duly skim through the 3 or 4 pages of search results every morning. On 15th May a J39908-70 in decent cosmetic condition came up on the first page.

【行董】ORIENT オリエント J39908-70 CS クォーツ クロノグラフ デイデイト 白文字盤 ステンレススチール ブランド腕時計 TC103ABZ51

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It was a 7-day auction listing with a low start opening bid price of ¥1 Yen. Unfortunately, it said at the top of the listing:
You cannot bid on items from this seller. I've seen this a couple of times before on Buyee. It's annoying that no reason is given. I thought of a way round it. I emailed my long term Japanese contact, Daisuke and asked him if he would bid on my behalf. He kindly agreed and I gave him an initial maximum bid limit of ¥10,500 Yen (approx £55 GBP), thinking that would be more than sufficient. I didn't think to take a screen print of the listing as it first appeared. On the final day of the auction, with 15 minutes to go before the scheduled finishing time, bidding was @ ¥3100 Yen after 17 bids, as shown by the Buyee ending soon notification. Ironic that it included a big BID NOW! button.

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From the number of bids (and similar number of watchers), there was clearly interest, but nobody seemed to want to pay too much for it. Once Daisuke started bidding in the final minutes, the automatic extension was invoked. Indeed, the auction dragged on for another 50 minutes, with Daisuke slugging it out with another determined bidder. It finally ended with bidding @ ¥12,100 Yen after a whopping 59 bids ! Adding 10% Japanese Sales Tax bought the total price to ¥13,310 Yen, equivalent to approx. £73.21 GBP / $91.70 USD

https://buyee.jp/item/jdirectitems/auction/x1184923027

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If you had read and translated the Japanese description, which mostly comprised T&C's, the usual caveats and shipping information (as I had), these couple of phrases stand out:

[Operation status] It is working but the chronograph does not work. This is the current condition of the item.
[Product condition] The belt and buckle are aftermarket products.

In fact, the chronograph function does partially work. The 1/10 second and 30-minute sub-dials both work fine, but the central sweep second hand is stuck @ 12 o'clock and shows no sign of life. I was hoping it might be something as simple as a displaced finger tension spring, but quickly unscrewing the case-back showed that wasn't the culprit. So next job I'll try swapping out the coil.

There were another 10 smaller photographs (strung together) embedded in the description. Most of them showed views of the strap and buckle. It's embossed Jaeger-LeCoultre and CROCODILE VERITABLE. Assuming that it's genuine, the strap probably cost more than the watch in its day. Oddly it's fitted with an IWC buckle. Unfortunately, the strap is starting to delaminate and it only fits my wrist on the last hole. I don't really like wearing secondhand leather straps anyway - for reasons of hygiene. I have a couple of 19mm Di-Modell 'mock croc' straps in stock, but they're really too flat. It needs something slightly more padded to go with those bulbous lugs. So I'll have to source something else suitable.

[Seiko7A38]

For now, here's a slightly different wrist shot to the one I posted in the WRUW thread yesterday morning.

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Incidentally, that isn't a chip in the rim of the crystal @ 120 on the Tachymeter scale. It's just a bit of grubbiness, which I quickly cleaned up with the point of a wooden cocktail stick, once I noticed it.