by

His and hers Citizen alarm – diver style


Here is of my favorite vintage watches! What can I say, I love diving watches! Despite the fact that it is not a real diving one, it is made in this style and has an added bonus complication.

As one can clearly see, because is written on the black beautiful dial, in white lettering, this is an alarm watch, Citizen 63-7076. It is powered by the usual Citizen alarm date calibre, 3102 (engraved underneath the balance wheel). This is based on the USSR calibre AS 1475. It is a manual winding movement, with 21 jewels running at 18000 bph. The watch has two crowns , signed “C”. The top one is for setting and winding the alarm while the bottom one is for setting the time and date and also winding the movement.

citizen diver alarm 63-7076The entire case is made entirely in stainless steel, the bezel is bidirectional frictional type while the crystal is domed acrylic with a date magnifier on the outer surface. I enjoy the fact that the watch looks good on any kind of bracelet or strap you throw at it (nato, rubber, leather, mesh…) Of course it looks good on the Citizen bracelet too. 🙂 The caseback is snap on type and for the alarm can work it can be placed only in a certain way. The active part of the alarm from the movement engages the passive part (the pin) of the caseback only if the two parts fit as they are supposed to.

citizen alarm diverCitizen also made one for the ladies, so here are a few pictures I found online on e-bay posted by antiquewatches-de. This one is a smaller watch and doesn’t have a date (calibre 9812). The crowns are signed “CTZ”.

citizen alarm diverThis year, and the previous one, we saw a growing trend of “his and hers” watches, well Citizen did it so beautifully, 50 years ago! And such a beautiful vintage pair this is today!

Here is a video of another Citizen alarm with the same movement and this is how it sounds: 

https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2014/02/17/vintage-citizen-alarm-date-4h-alds51301a-y/

And this is another awesome his and hers real diving Citizen pair: 

https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2014/03/15/citizen-ladies-diver-150m-model-54-0919/

by

Citizen Leopard 28800 4-720032TA


It is always nice to visit new places and when one of these places is Hong Kong there is no way that you should leave empty handed (pun intended). So, on a watch hunt I went. I talked to my friends from the city about the best places to find vintage watches around there and started roaming the streets. Little did I know that fate was going to prove that my hotel was perfectly positioned so, in the end, one thing leading to another, I found my dream watch only because I bought the one in this article (that is a another story to be told after I get THE watch in my possession). Back to the story, here is what I found:

citizen leopard 28800The interesting feature of this watch is the little word that describes, well… a big cat: the Leopard. The Leopard range is special due to the high beat movements. Some of them are 28,800 and some are 36,000 bph. This particular range of watches was introduced in about 1969 and only lasted for a few years, enough time for Citizen to make about 15-20 variations of Leopard movements based on 72xx and 77xx calibers. (as a side note: way too many variations and not enough DNA unfortunately) Also a great number of cases and designs were made so I am sure you can find a Leopard perfect for your taste. 🙂

This particular watch has a stainless steel polished cushion shaped case, a simple, smooth, polished bezel and a stainless steel case back. It was made in April 1974 (funny thing I have noticed – a lot of the Citizen watches I have/had were made in April). The quartz revolutions was about to change the watch world. Just think about the fact that Citizen today is the largest watch company based mostly on quartz, the very same quartz that almost killed what we love so much, the vintage mechanical Citizen watches. 😦 The dial is silver, simple, with a beautiful sunburst effect. The applied hour markers have a black line while the 12 o’clock one has two black lines. These black details work very well with the black hour and minute hands. The sweeping second hand is polished. The Citizen logo is also applied while the rest of the text is printed in black: “automatic, 28800, Leopard, 26 jewels”. One can easily understand from reading the dial that the movement inside is automatic with 26 jewels. On top of that it can also be winded by hand. The date is quick set while the day changes by advancing the hands past midnight. It is a hacking movement (the second hands stops when setting the time). The picture below is a part of the scans made by me of Citizen vintage catalogues.

Citizen leopard calibre 7200 36000

As a conclusion: beautiful watch and an interesting reminder of how fate works! 

Read more about Citizen Leopard 36000 here:

https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2014/11/22/citizen-leopard-36000/

by

Citizen Walter Wolf Chronograph


Like most of the times a lot of patience pays off. After a long time searching I have managed to find not one, but two very rare vintage Citizen Walter Wolf chronographs in the very same week! The first one came from Italy, the titanium one, and a week later, the black one came from Germany. (Thank you Fred and Daniel!)

citizen walter wolf

Why is this model so special? Because in the 70’s Citizen produced a lot of interesting watches and their chronograph calibre 8110A was one of the best: fly back, column wheel, day-date, hi beat automatic. What an awesome movement! And where is a chronograph at home?! In a race! So… Citizen made this Walter Wolf watch, with a special case (the one in titanium was one of the early watches to use this material for cases and bracelets). The other one is black coated metal. It also had a bidirectional rotating bezel, a nice feature usually not used in chronographs. On the outer circle of the dial it is the mandatory race related Tachymeter so the outer rotating bezel is a nice addition. Read more about Walter Wolf Racing HERE.

Back to the watch! The black one is made in 1982 and the titanium in 1983. As I was saying the case is special to this model and by doing this, Citizen managed to obtain a 100m WR. That is impressive. The crowns and pushers are non screw in but the caseback is. The winding crown is hard to operate because it is very small. On the caseback we have the Walter Wolf logo (present on the dial too), the brand, the material, the model and the serial no. The country of manufacturing is obviously Japan. In fact I think this model was made for Japan (all the models I know about had English – Japanese day wheel). The bracelet is well integrated with the case and is the perfect design for this racing dedicated watch. The dial is beautiful, black (there is one more model with a golden dial), with a lot of interesting details (please magnify the pictures for better understanding). The luminous material is made with Promethium 147, a radioactive material. Read about it HERE.  It is marked P-JAPAN-P. The rotating bezel is another interesting feature. This in not the usual diving style one but a countdown type! Note the 60-0 markings. (not the usual diving 0-60)  On top of this there is a cardinal inscription (N E S W) for better navigation, of course!  🙂 The movement is the usual Citizen cal 8110A, a vertical clutch chronograph (beating at 28.800 bph) with column wheel and fly back function. It has a day-date indicator. The rotor is special with a different inscription than the common 8110A found in the other models.

vintage citizen walter wolf

Update 2016 October: (pictures credited to the online seller)

Here it is how the original package should look like. Also note that there is a quartz pair of the automatic chrono. Happy to have the  complete NOS package myself. 🙂

walter-wolf-racing-citizen

Update 2017 October:

Here it is another variant, the golden dial one, same titanium case and bracelet. Notice the honeycomb dial pattern. In the picture below you can also see the Walter Wolf F1 car.

Conclusion: A special watch, loaded with  features, a joy to wear and use, a pleasure for the eyes and a huge happiness for the heart and soul of the blessed owner.

Read more about Citizen chronographs HERE.

by

1974 Citizen Chronograph Print


One lucky find was this page from Auto Motor Sport magazine from 1974.

It says “Citizen Chronograph Automatic” and “A lot of precision for the money (at this price)”. So, we have a racing automatic chronograph that is not too expensive and still very precise. The race on! These are the designs that were used at the time. My favorites are not here (The Walter Wolf and the Octagon bullhead).

On the other side of the page we have a red Ferrari Testa Rossa. 😉

Enjoy the print!

Citizen chronograph automatic

The watches wit only one sub-dial are powered by Citizen calibre 8100A  and the others (with 2 sub-dials) by Citizen calibre 8110A

The next models are represented, with their prices in DM at the time (year 1974).

  1. 67-9011 (DM 355)
  2. 67-9631 (DM 298)
  3. 67-9577 (DM 278)
  4. 67-9038 (DM 325)
  5. 67-9071 (DM 348)

Read more about Vintage Citizen Chronographs here:

https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/chronograph-vcw/

by

Citizen 8100 Chronograph 67-9151 Restoration


One of my favorite Citizen chronographs is the 67-9151 model. I wrote before about a custom project based on this model HERE.

This time I will write about the all original one.

The watch was found in a bad shape, really scratched and dirty.  But even underneath that scratched crystal there could be easily observed the beautiful original green dial. For this model there are available only three dial variations, as seen in the catalog picture below.  The caseback was never removed in the past 30 years. The movement stopped a long time ago and the pushers were not moving.

citizen-67-9151

The restoration process started by removing the caseback and the dedicated bracelet. The design of the stainless steel bracelet fits the  octagonal watch case perfectly being made for this model only. After removing the bracelet and the clasp, it was time for the movement to come out.

The calibre 8110A was serviced and now it is running strongly, as it should. It is a flyback mechanism and features a day – date complication too. It is an automatic movement,  with 23 jewls and hand winding capability. It was produced by Citizen starting from 1972. It is a vertical clutch chronograph (beating at 28.800 bph) with column wheel and fly back function. The fly back function means that you can reset the chronograph while in motion and it will start again without needing to go the entire process of pressing stop-reset-start. So, one push can do all of this. A particularity for this movement is that when you want to change the day you should pull the crown to second position (for changing the date) and push and release the reset (1 o’clock) button.  The column wheel/vertical clutch design of the movement advices to leave the chronograph running for most of the time (this way you can also see the beautiful sweeping central second hand in movement), but from time to time it should be stopped.

citizen 67-9151 chrono

The dial is the main attraction of the watch, and that says something about it. The overall sharp, angular shape of the watch is mirrored in the mesmerising details. The green color is not plain at all but lighter and shinier in the centre and darker at the 3 and 9 sides. The chronograph sub-dials are hexagonal with 3 variations: yellow-white, yellow-orange and all yellow.  The seconds hand for the all yellow version is yellow too while for the other two is orange.

vintage citizen chronograph 8110

At the end of the restoration we have a newly brushed/polished strap and case, fully functional movement, and a new mineral crystal. What a beautiful watch!

Read more about Citizen chronographs on this page:

https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/chronograph-vcw/

by

Citizen Leopard 36000 – model 67-2050


When you say the word Leopard next to Citizen you know this is a special one. 

Why is is special? Read on and see. 🙂

citizen leopard

The first thing you notice when holding the watch is the beautiful mesh stainless steel bracelet that fits the case as a high end modern watch would. The case is stainless steel too and has an interesting oval shape, with integrated lugs. The bezel is polished and so is the entire case except for the frontal surface that has a radial brushed finish. The crown is simple, signed CTZ. Another detail is discovered when seeing the watch from the side: a beautiful arched shape, following the wrist of the lucky wearer.

The dial, seen through the oval mineral crystal, is grey-blue, sometimes more one or the other depending on the light, and very elegant. The hour indexes are applied and so is the day date window frame. The hour and minute hands are dark grey and the seconds hand is white. Why is it white? Because the second hand is special. It is special because on the dial except for the applied logo Citizen and Automatic at 12, at 6 it is written 36000, Leopard, 28 jewels. And this says something about the movement. 🙂

citizen leopard copy

The calibre inside is the Citizen hi-beat parashock 7230, running at 36000 bph.  It has 28 jewels and a beautiful white sweeping central second hand that hacks, it can be winded by hand also and has a quickset date feature. The day is set by advancing the hour hand pass midnight.

A beautiful elegant watch and I consider myself to be very fortunate to have found this time capsule in a NOS state, even though it is made on April 1974.

later edit: I found the watch in the next picture on yahoo japan so the pictures are not mine but belong to the seller. This is the first solid Gold superbeat 10 Leopard I see. There are also a few models in stainless steel and some gold plated Leopards too, but this is the first I see in solid gold. Needless to say it is in perfect condition. The selling price is JPY 350,000.

gold citizen leopard

Here is a scan made by me of the Citizen calibre 72xx from a vintage Citizen catalogue. I hope it helps understanding a little better the inside of these beautiful watches.

Citizen leopard calibre 7200 36000

Read more about a vintage Citizen Leopard POCKET WATCH here: 

https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2014/02/10/citizen-leopard-36000-pocket-watch-67-2192/

And read about The 28800 Citizen Leopard here:

https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2015/01/17/citizen-leopard-28800-4-720032ta/

by

Vintage 1968 Citizen College Alarm


Citizen has a beautiful range of vintage alarm watches, some of them with date, some of them more simple, like this one, without a date.

vintage citizen alarm

Here is the no date version of the Citizen alarm, the Citizen College Alarm. It is marked Parawater and this fact, along with the serial no, is dating it to March 1968. The design is simple and clean, the case is made in stainless steel, with a domed acrylic crystal. Read about how to date a vintage Citizen here.

citizen alarm vintage

One of the best feature of the watch is the pie-pan dial look. On closer examination the dial turns out to be flat but the two types of finishing and tone gives it this lovely appearance. The central part has a silver sunburst effect while the outer ring has a circular one. On this circular part we can see the polished applied  hour markers that have a black painted line or two (for 12, 3 6 and 9). It is marked in black writing: “Citizen College Alarm” at 12 and “parawater 17” at 6. The 4  polished hands are for showing the time and the shorter one, with a triangular tip is for the alarm. The hour hand (as well as the minute one) has a a central longitudinal black line, to match the hour markers.

The case is made in stainless steel, with 38 mm diameter, the lugs are elegant and the two unsigned crowns are easy to operate and still very well suited to compliment the elegant design. The bracelet and the clasp is made in stainless steel too.

citizen college alarm vintage

The movement is the Citizen calibre hand winding 9812 (no date), 17 Jewels, 18000 bph. The crowns are one for the time and the one for the alarm. The crown at 2 o’clock in first position is winding the alarm and the alarm is deactivated. If you pull it in the second position you can set the alarm (counterclockwise) and the alarm is activated. Pressing it while the alarm is ringing will stop it. The crown at 4 will wind the watch and pulling it out will set the time. The alarm will ring for 13-16 seconds. The movement has a power reserve of about 40-45 hours and it runs great if winding it once a day. It is Parashock.

Read more about another beautiful Citizen alarm, the Citizen Alarm Date here.

by

Citizen Parawater – THE Parawater


After presenting the first watch manufactured by Citizen, the beautiful pocket one (read about it HERE), it is time for another milestone in watchmaking. This time, the first Japanese waterproof watch, THE Parawater! This makes it the grand, grand father of all the Citizen divers we all love so much!  Please note that this was not intended for diving, but it was up to the task for swimming!

In 1959 the company produced the first Japanese water-resistant wrist watch. This was the “Citizen Parawater”. It was powered by the Citizen Cal. 920(2B). It was produced with  19, 21 and 23 jewels. Soon after, the Parawater completed two trans-Pacific tests and one in the Sea of Japan. The result, needless to say, was positive. As time passed Citizen was growing as a company and exported more and more watches, so (unfortunately IMHO) the term “Para Water” was changed to the universally recognized (an boring)  “Water resistant” somewhere around 1970-1973.

Back to this particular one! The line chosen to be modified so that it will become water protected was a success already, the Deluxe. Citizen changed the design of the case, added rubber seals and greatly modified the tube and crown assembly. By doing that and after a lot of research they were able to stand by their product in public demonstrations.

Citizen Parawater Deluxe

After intensive search I managed to find this particular watch, in an non working state, the bracelet and the clasp was destroyed beyond restoration and the crystal was badly scratched, but what an awesome find! I had to take the plunge! (pun intended 🙂 ) This is how I got the pictures from the seller in Greece:

Citizen Parawater

Now, after a long time deciding how invasive the restoration should be I went with a bracelet swap with a similar design from the same time frame by Citizen, a light crystal polish and I got the movement running again.  This is the end result:

Citizen Parawater Deluxe

Interesting facts: The black dial has lume dots and the hands are also with luminous material, making it very rare (the only one I saw) and very beautiful. Another detail is the fact that the entire dial in printed and there is no applied logo.

The caseback has the inscription: “All stainless steel”, “Antimagnetic”, “Parawater”, “STAR”, “Citizen Deluxe” and the serial no. By the way the watch is made in 1959, making it one of the very first pieces.

Beautiful lug holes for easy bracelet replacement.

Don’t forget to magnify the last picture for more details!

Conclusion: I am so happy to introduce to you this wonderful piece of history and I hope you like it as much as I do! The watch found a new home with Daniel in Germany and for sure it is a great home! Enjoy it Daniel!

Later edit (2015): 

I here present to you my keeper Para Water, that I found this year in Hong Kong (thanks Anthony! 🙂 ) Excellent condition, fully working 100% original, made in 1961.

parawater citizen deluxe

Here are the three dial variants, Two white ones (one with a star, the other without) and the black one.

parawater citizen

Update 2016 APR

Here it is a commercial advertising sign from the period:

the first parawater citizen

Read more about vintage Citizen divers HERE

by

Citizen Shokosha pocket watch


Well, after a long time of intensive searching I have managed to get this magnificent piece of Citizen history in particular and watches in general. 

shokosha citizenAround 1920,s Japan had a lot of Swiss and American made watches but one jeweler from Tokyo had the ambition to built cheaper, high quality Japanese pocket watches. He founded in 1918 the Shokosha Watch Research Institute. His name is Kamekichi Yamazaki. In 1924 the first Citizen was sold, using the Citizen calibre 16. The name Citizen was given to the watch by Tokyo Mayor Shinpei Goto, in conformity to his dream, a watch of high quality that every citizen could afford. The Emperor of Japan was (probably) the first to own this watch. He got this watch as a present and he was very impressed by it. He loved the style and the quality he experienced with this Japan made pocket timepiece. This is how one of the greatest watch stories was born!

shokoshaWell, back to the watch itself. The first impression when I got it was that it is a small one. At only 40-41 mm diameter it is smaller than most of the modern wristwatches. It is also very slim for a pocket watch. The more I look at it the more I like it. Perfect size, perfect proportions, lovely arabic numerals, the easy to operate 12 o clock winding crown… all perfect. The case is silver (I doubt the fact that is stainless steel but I see no place of corrosion or rust. In fact it is in close to mint condition after 90 years! The caseback snaps perfectly into place and the hinge, that connects it to the watch, works flawlessly. The crystal seems to be made out of glass and it is slightly domed contrasting with the flat caseback.

citizen shokoshaThe movement is the famous Citizen calibre 16, clean, decorated and accurate. It has 15 jewels and it is signed Citizen Shokosha. The low serial no. dates this particular one as being made in the first years (1925-1926). The balance spring is blue, just like the classic shaped hands. The dial has an interesting particularity: looking at it from an angle it looks as the base color is black and the silver paint is applied leaving the numerals, the brand and the markings look engraved.

Update 2016 October:

Adding a movement pic with of two more watches, one with 10J one with 15J. As you can see, the decoration is also different. By the way, the case is not hinged, so that is another interesting feature.

citizen-pocket-watch

citizen-shokosha-pocket-watch

Update 2020 December

Here is how the watch with original box should look like. (pictures from an online seller)

All things considered this is a beautiful extremely well preserved piece of Citizen history. It makes me think: If this watch wouldn’t have been so great, Citizen would’t have lead the quarts revolution in the 80’s. Lets imagine the watch world without Citizen… This watch made the global watch world what it is today! 

Read more about Citizen history here: https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2013/12/26/citizen-history-from-1924

by

Citizen 150m diver bezel (original vs fake)


Call it fake, call it aftermarket, one thing is true: it is not original.

As a vintage watches collector I find myself often in the situation where I am wrong about some things I take too easily for granted. We all learn, sometimes it is the easy way, sometimes is the hard way, in the end, we all learn.

This time I’ve learned it the hard way with one of the most common and well known diver, the 62-6198 so I am writing this lines in order to help some potential vintage Citizen collector looking to buy a genuine one.  Read about the wonderful Citizen 150m HERE.

I already wrote about the original – fake dial for the Citizen bullhead octagonal chronograph. You can find that HERE. 

vintage citizen diver bezel 150m original fakeSo, lets see what sets them apart:

1 – First of all you should look at the luminous pearl. It should be matching the luminous material of the hands and the hour markers.

2 – The pearl should be dipped in the bezel, nor raised.

3 -The pearl, again should look a little darker on the original, not that clear and bright as the fake one.

4 – The triangle should be with clear borders, and on the top part it should be more space. The fake one has the upper part of the triangle almost touching the outer border of the insert.

5 – The numbers are not matching, take your time to spot the differences!

6 – Take the bezel insert of and see the color of the pearl on the other side.

As a conclusion: Take your time, do your homework, don’t assume you know it all and enjoy Vintage Citizen Watches!

P.S. Thank you Jack! 😉