Indianapolis 500 logo'd Orient J25 Alarm Chronograph

[Seiko7A38]

I initially thought about tacking this post onto the existing Orient J39701-70 - Indianapolis 500 Logo Variants thread (you'll see why presently), but then I remembered this little used forum section. Although I've kept my three original Buyee saved searches, which were designed to find them, I haven't seen another Orient J39 (with or without the Indy 500 logo) listed on Yahoo Japan in over a year. So perhaps they are fairly rare. Other watches with Indianapolis 500 dial logos crop up on YJ fairly regularly. It's almost as if 'Indianapolis 500' was a watch brand in Japan. Often as not the dial logo used is the classic 'Winged Wheel' with flags. See: https://johnsonindy500.trackforum.com/s ... logos.html.

Having said that, other year specific logos do turn up occasionally. A couple of weeks ago, a job lot of 6 watches, which included a fairly horrible looking Indianapolis 500 chronograph, was listed on YJ. That one has the 1992 Indy 500 logo on the dial and also engraved on the caseback. These are found by my 'Indianapolis 500' search on watches and accessories and can be based on many different watch brands - some like the previously cited example aren't easily identifiable.

This morning I was surprised to see that my 'Indianapolis 500' Buyee saved search had turned up a new listing that was also captured by my 'Orient クロノグラフ' (chronograph) search. Except it wasn't an Orient J39701-70, but another previously unseen caliber, specifically a model J25302-60. It's a 5-day auction with an opening bid price of ¥1000 Yen.

https://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/1151752443

Orient-J25302-60-Indianapolis500-LeatherStrap-YapooJapan-Sept2024-Listing (2).jpg (226.91 KiB) Viewed 425 times

The reason it caught my eye is that it uses the same 1985 Indianapolis 500 dial logo as the Orient J39701-70's.

Orient-J25302-60-Indianapolis500-LeatherStrap-YapooJapan-Sept2024-1.jpg (214.9 KiB) Viewed 428 times

Orient-J25302-60-Indianapolis500-LeatherStrap-YapooJapan-Sept2024-8.jpg (220.08 KiB) Viewed 423 times

As with the J39701-70, the case-back stampings show ORIENT WATCH CO, LTD. JAPAN and model number J25302-60.

[Seiko7A38]

It's a fairly uninspiring looking 3 button alarm quartz chronograph. There's no crown, so presumably you select function by rotating the bezel. I've spent a little time researching Orient caliber J25 this morning and frankly not come up with much. I found an eBay listing for another (non Indianapolis 500) Orient J25 variant by an Israeli seller. It's a J25701-60.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285571602608

Although the bezel is slightly different from that of the J25302-60 (it still has 6 segments), the dial layout is virtually identical. The watch looks like it may have suffered from moisture ingress or a leaking battery.

rsz_orient-j25701-60-ebay-nov2023-1.jpg (238.56 KiB) Viewed 398 times

The seller has included one poor quality photo of the movement:

rsz_orient-j25701-60-movement.jpg (236.26 KiB) Viewed 418 times

[Seiko7A38]

This isn't the first time that I've seen the 1985 Indianapolis logo used on an Orient watch dial, besides the J39701-70. Thinking back to the old archived forum's Some wry observations on Orient J39 pricing thread, I did have a fairly lengthy off-topic ramble, when I spotted two NOS Orient C27219-60 'Divers' listed on Yahoo Japan in February 2020.
The thread continues on from the extract below, towards the bottom of page 4 ....

Orient-C27-OldForum-Post.png (136.22 KiB) Viewed 416 times

From evidence seen in those two YJ listings, I came to the conclusion that the Orient C27219-60's were manufactured in conjunction with LIBRE REAL TIME, under license from INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY CORP., but got no further than that, because no meaningful Google search results were forthcoming. Possibly the same applies to the J25302-60.