The Citizen world is a diverse, marvelous place, with divers, chronographs, Leopards, Jet movements, and Chrono Masters and a lot of interesting models. How can anyone not have a skeleton? Well… here it is, one of the interesting ’70s Citizen watches.

A large round black case and a skeleton movement, display back and a lot of black and gold accents. It is all about the looks! This watches were first produced in 1971, this particular one being from 1973. The design of the case is the usual one for the period and so is the fact that the case is black. In fact Citizen made a relatively large amount of black cases in the early ’70s. They also designed a lot of beautiful dials and even made watches without one, just like this one. 🙂 Not having a dial doesn’t mean it is an ugly watch but a very interesting one to look at. You can see the movement, the way the crown connects and operates the movement through the stem and flipping the watch over the surprise is that there is a display back so the rotor is in plain sight. The balance wheel is visible through both sides. The entire movement was modified so that all these component can be observed and some parts were blackened and others were given a golden look. I find this color scheme very fortunate.

Some people may like it, others will stick with the more conservative look, with watches having a dial, but no one could argue the fact that this is an interesting watch to wear and look at. Some models were made in stainless steel cases, gold plated or, like this one, black plated ones. At first the Citizen name was stamped on the movement (cal 7290) and later on moved at 6 o clock, on the minute ring (8060). Some of them came with luminous material on the hands, others without. The second hand might be simple, as mine, or might have a luminous dot at the tip. And sometimes it also can be painted red.

The early type movement used was Citizen cal 7290, like mine, with hacking seconds, 21,600 bph. The second movement was the 8060 calibre, 28,800 bph.

Update Dec 2015: Here is my stainless steel one:

Bottom line, an interesting watch, with a lot of models to chose the favorite from.

Read more about the Leopard watch with a display back HERE.