citizen blackie

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Citizen Alarm Date Custom V2 Blackie


Without a doubt this is one of my all time favorite alarms! Sporty, great wrist presence, complicated, beautiful and useful! Here it is the NOS, black coated, 1971 Citizen Alarm Date Custom V2 blackie! (model  4-310179Y)

I wrote a few articles about Citizen alarms powered by this movement so the data is the same: a hand wound movement, calibre 3102 (date), 21 Jewels, 18,000 bph. The twin crowns are for time setting and winding the main spring and the other one for setting and winding the alarm. The crown at 2 o’clock in first position is winding the alarm while 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 about 13-16 seconds.

citizen alarm date custom v2

The case is black coated and so is the bracelet. Read about another beautiful blackie V2 HERE. The three crowns, the bezel and the case back are made of stainless steel and are polished.

The dial is gorgeous, black, with applied luminous hour markers that are still glowing today. The date is located at 3 o clock, in a white frame, and is printed in white on a black date wheel. The second hand is orange and we have one more color, yellow, used for the inner bi directional rotating bezel. This bezel is operated by the third crown, the one located at 10 o’clock. You can use this feature for easily reading the elapsed time, up to 60 minutes, just as you do with your usual diver.

Read more about other alarms on the dedicated page HERE.

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Citizen automatic skeleton


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.

citizen automatic skeleton

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:

citizen skeleton vintage automatic steel

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.