citizen automatic

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Citizen Auto Phynox – the first automatic Citizen


Do you want a dress watch? One that is an important part of Citizen history? Maybe one that is really rare? Look no more, here it is the awesome Citizen Auto!

Citizen well known Jet movements are often believed to be the earlier automatics that the company produced, prior to the swinging central mounted rotor, BUT, in fact that is not true. Well, even before the Jet, Citizen had a traditional, more common type automatic movement and this is the watch to have it!

citizen auto 20 jewels phynoxThe case is made of stainless steel, and so is the screw in caseback making it water protected. Overall it has a clean design, with applied hour markers, three hands, central sweeping seconds, no luminous material. Nothing fancy about the design, just a clean elegant look. But, let’s take the case back off!

Here is the movement! And that is the first automatic movement Citizen ever produced, calibre 3KA. Citizen had to come up with a self winding mechanism as a response to the first Japanese automatic made by Seiko in 1955. At the time Seiko was the main competitor and most of the time ahead of Citizen, so the company needed to keep up. They made this starting from May 1958 for only about 3-4 years (not sure about this). Citizen stoped making it because of the introduction of the fabulous (in my opinion) Jet movements that were made from ’61 to ’67. Read about Jets HERE. So, here is the Citizen AUTO! In fact it has a manual wind base movement that was added a large bridge that covers almost all of the inner parts. On this bridge the swinging bidirectional winding weight was placed so the watch became an automatic. Cal. 3KA runs at 18,000 vibration (5 vibration/sec) and has a power reserve of about 35 hours. It can also be winded by hand. Just give it a few turns of the crown and the seconds will tick away easily.

citizen-auto-vintage

Read more about other important Citizen watches HERE.

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Citizen chronograph calibre 8110A


Here are a few pictures of the gorgeous in-house movement Citizen cal 8110A that my friend Sergio was kind enough to let me use on the site so all of us could enjoy! Thank you Sergio!

The movement here is the Citizen automatic, 23 jewels, calibre 8110A with 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. (how many modern chronograph do that, and what is their cost?) Lets don’t forget it has a day and date indicator. 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. Of course that if you want to stop it you can go the classic stop-reset way. 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. It is 27 mm wide and 6.9mm high. 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. This is a chronograph that needs to be used. It is not made for design purpose but for timing.

citizen 8110a chronograph

Citizen 8110A

Features
automatic chronograph, 60s, 30min, 12h, pillar wheel
flyback feature: reset and immediate restart
day: set by reset-pusher in crown position for date setting, 2 languages
date: quickset

Data
12”’, Dm= 27.0mm
H= 6.9mm
23 jewels
f = 28800 A/h
power reserve 40h

Stem Citizen 065-178

Remarks
1970-
ball-bearing rotor
usually as bull head (crown/puschers at 12h, day/date at 6h)

Example, year: signature; shock device
1977: Citizen Japan, 23 J.; Parashock

Data about this movement from here.

Read more about one of my favorite Citizen, one powered by this awesome movement here: https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/2013/12/24/citizen-bullhead-chronograph-67-9356/

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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/

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Vintage Citizen Diver – Seven Star 4-526970Y


This is not the usual diver, but it has the lovely look of one. In fact this is one of the first “divers” made by Citizen, the precursor of the famous Citizen real diving watches.

It is the Parawater model but it has no specific depth rating. The production date of this particular watch is February 1970.

citizen seven star diver

The case is made in stainless steel, thin, with a bidirectional friction type stainless steel rotating bezel. It measures 38mm wide. It has a domed acrylic crystal that gives a lovely look to the black, matte dial. The crown is marked “C” as most of the early Citizen watches did and it is not screw type.

The dial is simple, black, with luminous squares as hour markers. At three a clock it has the day-date window. Sundays , as usual, are written in red. The hands are common to Seven Star range at the era. The second hand has a luminous dot at the tip.

Citizen vintage diver seven star

The movement is the the calibre 5204 with 21 jewels. It runs at 28,000 bph and it doesn’t hack. The date changes in the second position of the winding crown and the day changes by advancing the hands pass midnight.

The bracelet is made in stainless steel, but I doubt the fact that is original to the watch. It fits the watch really nice.  The clasp, is as usual, signed “Citizen”.

Conclusion – Beautiful piece of history, a precursor of the real Citizen diving watches, the “missing” link between THE Parawater watch and the real diving watches made by Citizen.

Read more about Citizen diving watches here:  https://vintagecitizenwatches.com/diver-vcw/

 

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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