citizen 8210

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Complete Vintage Citizen 150m Divers


No Citizen collection can be considered a real collection until a 150m diver is included. This is the most recognizable diver line in vintage Citizen so sooner or later for sure one model will come up for sale, just in time for you to grab and never let go. In fact there are 7 different models that to the untrained eye look almost identical. One for every day of the week, I would say. Well.. now that you have one, you will soon feel the urge to get another one and another one, and then a better condition fist one, that you already have, and another one. Without even realizing, it soon becomes an obsession, to have them all, and to have them all in top condition! The hunt is on!

So, it is my pride and joy, my pleasure to introduce to you the entire 7 watches collection! 

vinatge citizen divers 150m

Let me tell you about them, in chronological order, starting from 1967 up to 1978:

  1.  Citizen Super Auto Dater, SADS 52801-Y was made in June 1967. It is my favorite. What is there not to like? It has a unibody case (the case back doesn’t come off), it has a top of the line 39 jewels Jet movement, calibre 1150, (read about Jet movements HERE) and it is marked Professional Parawater. The crown threads are on the outside of the crown tube. The case is shaped differently and it shows that a lot of effort was placed into designing and producing it. I just love the angles and the contrast between the brushed and the angled polished surfaces. Read about this model HERE. Is is on a Tropic strap. I didn’t see any on bracelet. I hardly saw any at all in fact. 🙂 Super rare!
  2. Citizen Crystal Date, AUDS 52802-Y OR-O was made in 1968. Did you ever see a better case back? Maybe you think you did, but take a look at this one! I am sure you will love it! The hands are different then the rest because there is no “Mercedes” style hour hand. The mesh bracelet is awesome, the crown is as it is for the first model and starting with this model the top part of the case has now a circular brushed finish rather then a longitudinal one. The uni case was dropped and starting now the case back screws into place. Starting with this model the Jet movement was replaced with a centrally mounted swinging weight. This one has the most beautiful aged lume. Read about that HERE. The movement is the Citizen automatic calibre 5410.
  3. Citizen Diver OR-O B52806 or 62-5370 are the same model but the first one is the one to have, because of the beautiful engraved case back. The 62-5370 is made for domestic market and the B52806 for export. They have different case backs, different hands sets and dial codes even though they share some of these features sometimes. The second hand tip received a luminous ball for better visibility (The 62-5370 can be found with a simple second hand too) The only thing that is constantly different is the case back. The movement is Citizen cal 5470. I had to chose between these two and I decided in favor of the first one. You can’t beat that awesome diver engraved case back! It is marked water proof in a period when the term Parawater was about to… unfortunately disappear. Is was made in ’69-’70 but the exact period is impossible to determine because it has no serial no. The 62-5370 on the other hand, has one and the manufacturing date can easily be seen. Read about these two variants together HERE.
  4. Citizen 150m 68-5372, 4-740131-Y is made in May 1971. It is still marked “parawater”, for the last time in this line. Read about “parawater” HERE. Starting now the case is different again and the crown has the threads on the inside, not on the outside of the crown tube. It has a different shape too and it is made in stainless steel. The previous ones I think are only capped in SS. And this is when the case backs became… well… displaying a lot of information but… boring. It is powered by Citizen calibre 7470. vintage citizen 150m divers
  5. Citizen 150m 4-722410 Y is made in October 1973 and is the only one displaying the date as well as the day of the week. The movement is from the leopard family, calibre 7200. That is always nice to have. You can read about it HERE. The bezel insert got a thin crystal layer on top of the luminous dot making it more resistant to water and normal usage while giving it a special look with a black ring around it. The sweeping second hand is straight again. And, as I said before, no more “parawater”, time for internationally common used “water resistant”.
  6. Citizen 150m 62-6198, 4-600851 Y is made in June 1974 and got a luminous marker near the date window. Pay attention to the fake “aftermarket” bezel inserts that you can learn about HERE. The date can be printed in red and the rest is, more or less, the well known design we grew to love so much. The bracelet is the H style links. Read more about it HERE. The movement inside is the Citizen calibre 7000.
  7. Citizen 150m 52-0110 is one of the very first Citizen watches I had. It is in fact my birth year watch and my month also. 🙂 It is made in July 1978 and marks the end of an era, 1978, the last year for vintage Citizen watches. It is the the one that started this hunt a few years ago. It comes in various forms, even with an orange dial, maybe blue one? maybe an orange dial and blue bezel insert? (I think the “blue bezel inserts are in fact faded and originally black) Two dial variants 1977 and 1978 that you can read about HERE. You can also read more about this model HERE. The beating heart is the well known Citizen calibre 8210. 150m citizen vintage divers copy

And… the rest is history. 🙂 I hope you found you perfect 150m diver and if you didn’t, don’t give up, I promise you you will love it and the wait is worth it!

Read more about other awesome Citizen divers HERE.

PS – who knows… one day I might find out there is another one and maybe another one… So far, these are all I am aware of. 🙂

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Citizen diver 150m 52-0110 dial variants


The largest group of Citizen divers is the 150m one. It has a classic design and a gorgeous look. They had a production time span of about 15 years, powered by a handfull of movements. The last model was the one in this article, the 52-0110. Even if this is one model it had a few variants. I saw only black dialed versions and a rare orange dial one. Stephen on his page suggests it might have had a blue dial too. http://sweep-hand.org/citizens-vintage-divers-1962-to-1980/ I have yet to see one to confirm that.

No matter the color, we can see two design variants, one prior to 1978 and one after 1978. I will call them “type 1″(8210 820719-S) and “type 2” (8210 824391 KA). The dial code is printed on the dial at the bottom of 6 o’clock. I am lucky enough to have both of them. Let’s see the picture that can be magnified them for better understanding.

citizen 150m 52-0110

My type 1 was made in ’77 and type 2 in ’78. The case is the same, the crown, crystal, bezel and movement are the same. Both powered by the well known Citizen cal. 8210, 21.600bph, quick set date, non hacking seconds.

The main difference is the dial, and the way the hour markers, the logo and the date frame are made.

  1. Type 1 has the letters of the Citizen logo separated while type 2 has all the letters connected in an applied logo.
  2. The date window on type 1 is connected with the lume frame. By contrast type 2 has two distinctive parts, date frame, and lume frame.
  3. These is due to the way Citizen chose to manufacture the dials. Starting from ’78, on type 2, they decided to apply these elements, and so they did. They made the dial, painted it, printed the white lettering and the minute markers and later applied the logo, the date frame as well as the hour markers.
  4. In type 1 (prior to ’78) we have a unibody dial, made in one piece containing the logo, date frame and hour markers. After painting and printing it Citizen polished the surface revealing this look.
  5. Under magnification the main difference is easy to spot: Type 1 has polished elements with only one metallic surface appearance while type 2 had these elements polished  on the sides too. This is because they were never painted. On type 1 we can see the black paint on the sides of the logo, date frame and hour markers.

With Citizen most of the times the look of a watch is dictated by the manufacturing process and so is the case with these dials too.

Read more about this model here:  https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2013/12/24/citizen-automatic-diver-150m-52-0110/

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Vintage Citizen Divers 150m: 68-5372 , 62-6198, 52-0110


It is my pleasure to introduce to you my three vintage Citizen 150m divers: 68-5372 , 62-6198, 52-0110.

Even though they might look similar at the very first sight, they are different models.

vintage citizen divers 150m 4-740131Y , 4-600851Y , 4-820789Y

They are all in excellent condition, the first two are actually NOS, the third one is not, but really well kept. The first one is made in 1971, the second in 1974 and the third in 1978. Read about how to date a Citizen watch here: https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2014/02/23/dating-a-vintage-citizen-watch/

Lets start with the similarities: 

All three are divers, rated to a respectable depth of 150m water pressure. They share the same case (4-740131Y , 4-600851Y , 4-820789Y ), with the same screw-in large crown. The bezel is bidirectional friction type. The sides of the cases are polished and the frontal surfaces are brushed in a similar manner. They are 40mm wide with 20mm steel bracelets at the lugs. Thew share the same mineral crystal, concave on the inside, with a flat surface, that magnifies the beautiful black dials. The movements are automatics with 21 jewels. All three display the date at 3 o’clock and have a central sweeping hand with a luminous dot. The hour indexes are applied rectangles, large, and filled with luminous material. The hands are similar in shape (Mercedes type hour hand and spade minute hand).  The three bracelets feature a diver extension link beneath the clasp. So, they are very much alike, but, let’t take a closer look!

vintage citizen divers 150m 68-5372 , 62-6198, 52-0110

The main difference is a small detail that I like a lot: The first one (made in 1971: 68-5372) is marked “parawater”. read more about parawater here: https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2013/12/26/citizen-parawater-citizen-parashock/. All the other differences emerge, the way I see things, from this small detail (the date of manufacturing). The era of “parawater” was different. The first watch is the only one with a solid bracelet links, the others have folded links. The date window is better placed on the dial due to a different movement size on the ’71 watch. The hour hand and the minute hand are longer. The dot at the end of the second hand in similar to the first two models and I like this a lot. The bezels have different thickness, due to different crystal height.  The thinest being the first one, getting thicker and thicker, translating to an overall watch height difference. The way the crystal fits to the case is very complicated at early models, with steel rings, rubber seals, and a lot of parts. The third one has the crystal fit by pressure ring plastic gasket. The way I see things Citizen tried to simplify production and make it mode profitable, but I like it complicated. Looking at the bezel inserts, the last one has markers on every minute. The middle one features an applied Citizen logo on the dial made from individual letters. The 1978 watch has a black digit date wheel. By contrast the other two have red digits. As a final touch, the printing on the dial is unique to every one of the three.

Citizen vintage diver 150m

The casebacks are similar but with different markings. Removing the caseback we have the chance to see the movements. Three distinct movement, automatics, with 21 jewels. The most striking feature is the fact that the first watch movement is filling nicely the case, being a suited size (this is the reason for the date position on the dial). The later two have smaller movements. At least the middle one has a steel ring around it to fill the useless space. The latest one has a cheaper plastic ring. All three movements have quick date setting, and offer hand winding ability.

year        model        case no         movement

1971       68-5372        4-740131Y        7470

1974       62-6198        4-600851Y      6000 (marked 6001)

1978       52-0110        4-820789Y      8210A

 As a conclusion, I want to say that even though I admire the first one and really appreciate the second one, the third (the only one that is not NOS) is the one I love the most. Nevertheless, I will not disclose the reason why. 🙂 Having one vintage Citizen diver 150m is a joy, having three is a bless.

UPDATE – the second hand I have seen to be either lollipop style with the ball at the end of it or not. For any of these models. I have yet to find catalogue pictures to be 100% sure about it.

read more about vintage Citizen divers here: https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/diver-vcw/