ACSS-52704-Y citizen

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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.

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Citizen Seven Star Deluxe “Monthly” model ACSS-52704-Y


This is a nice full calendar Citizen, powered by a simple movement. Even though it looks like the month display is a complex feature, it is only a simple and clever internal bezel.  Due to this particularity (month display) it was named “Monthly” but another similar model is called “Moon – Dater”.  The reason for a this (one model with two names) is the fact that the “Moon -Dater” might have been designated for export.

citizen seven star deluxe monthly

The case is, as most of the times, made is stainless steel, with mirror polished flat sides and deep sunburst frontal surface. It has a cushion style shape with integrated lugs. The bezel holding the flat mineral crystal is polished and so is the stainless steel caseback. My watch is the black face one, while the credit for the pictures of the white one goes to an internet seller. Both of them are in perfect condition and the different surfaces can be easily admired mostly because of it’s generous proportions, being rather large. It has two crowns, one at 3 o’clock connected to the mechanism and one at 2 o’clock for easily setting the month. It is marked “Para water” (it is made in 1969, prior to the unfortunate term change in 1973 to international “water resistant”)

The dial is dark deep black, without reflections. The white one is as in the pictures. I didn’t have the chance to hold it and take a closer look. The hour markers are applied and polished. The “7” logo and the “Citizen” logo are applied in a similar manner. In the same way the hands and the day-date window frame are also polished. There is a second part of the dial, a raised internal minute disk that features the month window. All the disks (day, date , month) are white with black lettering (sundays are red). For the white dialed one the day is positioned at 9. There is also a version with a pink month disk (the Moon Dater?) I like the crosshair detail and the white lettering resembling white chalk writing on a blackboard on the black one.

citizen monthly seven star acss52704-y

The movement is the automatic Citizen calibre 5270, with 21 jewels beating at 18,000 beat per hour, with quickset date.  Some models have a 23 jewels movement. It is a reliable movement used in a variety of models displaying day and date. It offers hand winding possibility too. The date changes in the second position of the winding crown (first position for winding, third for time setting) but the day changes only by passing midnight with the hands. The operating crown for the movement is the one at 3. Even though it seams that the month display is operated by the movement, it does not. In fact it is an internal bezel that should be adjusted by the crown at 2 o’clock.

The bracelet for the black one (nor sure if it is the proper one for the model)  is tapering and closing with a signed clasp. The interesting part of the signature is the fact that is longitudinally placed along the clasp. Not too much to say about it, only a brushed bracelet that in my opinion suits the watch very well.The white one is on a mesh bracelet (not sure if original for the model).

All things considered, this is a simple, interesting watch, with a clever way of displaying the month. So, here we have a full calendar vintage Citizen.

Read about the older version, more complex, full calendar Citizen watch HERE